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LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  BY 


PRINCETON   UNIVERSITY  UBtiARY 


BX  9821  .C3  1918 
Cabot,  Ella  Lyman. 
Our  part  in  the  world 


THE    BEACON    PRESS   PUBLICATIONS 
IN   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION 


THE   NEW  BEACON  COURSE 
OF  GRADED    LESSONS 


William  I.  Lawrance 
Flobence  Buck 

Editors 


OUR   PART    IN    THE   WORLD 


OUR  PART  IN  THE  WORLD 


BY 

ELLA    LYMAN   CABOT 

Member  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Education 
Author  of  "Everyday  Ethics,"  "Ethics  for  Children,"  etc. 


THE  BEACON   PRESS 

25  BEACON  STREET 

BOSTON,  MASS. 


COPTRIGHT,  1918,  BY 

THE   BEACON  PRESS,   Inc. 


All  righta  reserved 


TO   HER 

MORE   LOVED,    MORE   KNOWN, 
MORE   BLESSED   EACH   DAY, 

MY   FIRST   RELIGIOUS   TEACHER. 


EDITORS'  PREFACE 

The  Beacon  Course  in  Religious  Education  aims  to 
acquaint  the  pupils  who  use  it  with  the  relationships 
into  which  they  are  progressively  entering,  and  to  de- 
velop their  native  impulse  to  live  as  they  ought  to 
live  who  are  heirs  to  so  great  obligations  and  privi- 
leges. As  the  course  progresses,  the  emphasis  on 
personal  responsibility  becomes,  quite  naturally,  more 
and  more  pronounced.  At  the  senior  period  of  the 
pupil's  development,  approximately  at  the  ages  of 
fifteen,  sixteen  and  seventeen,  the  time  seems  to  have 
arrived  to  present  a  direct  challenge  to  each  one  to 
face  frankly  his  or  her  own  life  problem,  to  assume 
responsibility  for  self-direction,  and  to  enlist  in  the 
army  of  those  who  strive  for  the  promotion  of  human 
well-being. 

This  manual  is  prepared  especially  for  pupils  fifteen 
years  old,  but  will  be  found  helpful  to  those  who,  at 
whatever  age,  are  at  the  threshold  of  the  self-dii'ected 
life.  It  points  out  the  place  of  the  individual  in  that 
complex  of  physical  and  spiritual  forces  into  which  he 
has  now  fully  entered,  indicating  the  ways  in  which  he 
may  do  his  part.  The  desire  to  get  into  the  game  of 
fife  is  intense  with  young  people  in  the  senior  period. 
Just  how  to  accomplish  that  purpose  and  to  meet  ade- 
quately the  ever-widening  demands  and  opportunities 
that  come  to  them  may  best  be  set  before  the  inquiring 
mind  by  those  who,  like  the  author  of  this  manual, 
have  traveled  this  way  with  open  eyes  and  sympa- 
thetic understanding,  and  have  through  all  preserved 
the  spirit  of  youth. 


X  Editors'  Preface 

The  full  equipment  for  this  year  in  the  Beacon  Course 
in  Religious  Education  comprises  two  volumes,  one 
entitled  Our  Part  in  the  World,  the  other,  Teachers' 
Manual  for  Our  Part  in  the  World.  Each  pupil  needs 
the  first  of  these.     The  teacher  needs  them  both. 

The  Editors. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

To  write  a  book  is  to  become  aware  that  one  is  a 
debtor  to  uncountable  other  books.  And  because 
most  of  these  debts  have  been  left  unacknowledged  so 
long  that  they  cannot  now  be  paid,  I  all  the  more  desire 
to  express  my  gratitude  to  Houghton  Mifflin  Company 
for  permission  to  print  an  extract  from  The  Promised 
Land,  by  Marj-  Antin;  to  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.  for  an 
extract  from  A  Student  in  Arms,  by  Donald  Hankey; 
to  IMcClure,  Phillips  &  Co.  for  an  extract  from  He  Knew 
Lincoln,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell;  to  W.  A.  Butterfield  for  a 
paragraph  from  Mademoiselle  Miss;  to  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  Press  and  to  Professor  Home 
himself  for  an  admirable  list  of  the  qualifications  needed 
by  teachers,  used  in  the  Teachers'  Manual,  from  Lead- 
ership of  Bible  Study  Groups,  by  Herman  H.  Home. 

I  have  received  many  a  valuable  suggestion  or  found 
many  an  illuminating  incident  in  The  Uphuilders,  by 
Lincoln  Steffens,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.;  A  Lie  Never 
Justifiable,  by  H.  Clay  Tmmbull,  John  D.  Wattles  & 
Co.;  Priests  in  the  Firing  Line,  by  R^n4  Gael,  Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co. ;  The  Varmint,  by  Owen  John- 
son, A.  L.  Burt  Co. ;  The  Immortal  Hope,  by  William 
Adams  Brown,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

It  gives  me  special  pleasure  to  refer  in  my  text  to 
these  and  many  other  enriching  books.  To  give  even 
a  taste  of  them  must  often  mean  to  give  a  taste  for  them 
and  so  to  put  before  the  reader  a  liberal  feast. 

The  editors  of  this  course,  Rev.  William  I.  Lawrance 
and  Rev.  Florence  Buck,  have  helped  me  more  than 


xii  Author's  Preface 

they  know  by  their  faith  and  their  faithfulness,  their 
encouragement  and  kindly  patience. 

And  lastly,  as  I  inadequately  try  to  express  my  grat- 
itude, I  turn  to  what  is  far  off  and  very  near:  How 
can  I  begin  to  tell  a  thousandth  part  of  what  I  owe  to 
the  authors  of  our  Bible? 

Ella  Lyman  Cabot. 


A  WORD  TO  THE  STUDENT 

There  has  never  been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the 
entire  world  that  the  prompt  service  of  youth  was  more 
needed.  You  are  needed  as  food  is  needed  in  a  famine, 
as  water  is  needed  in  a  raging  fire,  as  nurses  are  needed 
in  a  pestilence,  as  a  sea-captain  is  needed  in  a  blinding 
storm  at  sea,  as  George  Washington  was  needed  after 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  All  nations  are 
draiiving  together.  They  are  drawn  together  by  suf- 
fering, by  the  chance  to  help  and  by  abounding  hopes. 
There  is  nothing  that  draws  even  strangers  together 
as  quickly  as  need  and  the  chance  to  help.  And  it  is 
your  generation  who  will  help  or  hinder  in  the  greatest 
need  the  world  has  ever  suffered  and  in  the  most  wide- 
reaching  design  it  has  known  since  the  time  of  Christ. 

But  how  does  one  learn  to  help?  you  will  ask.  You 
know  how  you  learn  to  play  a  tune  well.  You  listen 
when  it  is  played,  you  practise  it  over  and  over,  re- 
peating especially  the  parts  you  fail  in,  but  also  you 
think  about  the  key,  the  time,  the  rhythm,  the  melody 
and  the  meaning  of  it  all.  So  you  will  learn  to  help, 
partly  by  watching  intently  those  who  are  helping 
now,  partly  by  trying  to  do  your  bit,  and  partly  by 
thinking  about  the  meaning  of  this  upsurging  life 
about  us. 

In  this  book  I  have  tried  to  show  a  glimpse  of  the 
universe  when  we  try  to  see  it,  not  just  as  getting  up 
in  the  morning  and  going  to  bed  at  night,  but  as 
an  amazingly  complicated,  thrilling,  tragic,  rejoicing, 
growing  world  that  is  calling  to  us.     It  has  its  immensely 


xiv  A  W(yrd  to  the  Student 

long  history,  whose  beginning  no  man  saw,  its  engross- 
ing present,  its  future  for  which  we  are,  in  our  minute 
but  exigeant  way,  responsible.  The  world  in  which 
we  take  our  part  is  wide  as  well  as  long.  Each  of  us 
starts  from  his  own  center  of  family  and  friends,  but 
we  cannot  go  any  distance  without  finding  ourselves 
Hnked  to  nations  three  thousand  miles  aw^ay.  The 
world  is  mysterious  and  full  of  problems.  Why  is  one 
man  rich  and  another  poor?  Why  is  one  strong  and 
another  ill?  Why  does  one  suffer  blow  after  blow  and 
another  go  unscathed?  There  is  but  one  answer, 
''God  knows."  That  is  why  in  this  book,  as  I  attempt 
to  point  toward  the  direction  of  your  part  in  the  world, 
I  must  turn  to  religion. 

God  knows.  How  shall  we  best  find  out  all  of  His 
truth  that  we  are  capable  of  understanding?  In  two 
ways.  By  watching  for  and  doing  His  will,  and  by 
living  with  those  who  know  Him  best.  The  chances 
to  know  by  doing  are  all  about  you.  You  may  not 
feel  strongly  yet  the  need  of  living  with  those  who 
know  God.  By  and  by  you  will.  Whenever  you  do 
you  will  turn  first  to  those  very  near  you  who  seem  to 
have  an  insight  you  want  but  do  not  possess,  and  then, 
I  believe,  to  the  source  of  their  strength,  to  him  who 
knew  God  best  and  who  told  us  how  we  too  could 
know  Him. 

Ella  Lyman  Cabot. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Editors'  Preface ix 

Author's  Preface xi 

A  Word  to  the  Student xiii 

Chapter 

I.     God  Cares  for  a  Barren  World 1 

II.     The  World  as  Moulded  by  Men's  Hands     ....  5 

III.  The  FamUy 11 

IV.  The  Neighborhood 15 

V.     The  City 19 

VI.     America,  and  What  It  Stands  For:  1.  Home     and 

Freedom 23 

VII.     America,  and  What  It  Stands  For:  2.  The  Union  .  28 

VIII.     America,  and  What  It  Stands  For:  3.  Equahty  .    .  32 
IX.     America,  and  What  It  Stands  For:  4.  The  Least  of 

These      36 

X.    America,  and  What  It  Stands  For:  5.    Social  Ser- 
vice     40 

XI.     America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  :  6.  Honor  and 

Chivalry 45 

XII.     America,  and  WTiat  It  Stands  For:  7.  Education   .  49 

XIII.  International  Ties 54 

XIV.  The  Past 60 

XV.     The  Present 65 

XVI.     The  Future 70 

XVII.     The  Church 75 

XVIII.     Our  Dependence  on  God 79 

XIX.    Our  Dependence  on  One  Another 83 

XX.     Everybody's  Interests      88 

XXI.     Interests  as  Sources  of  Health  and  Happiness    .    .  93 

XXII.     Special  Choices 97 

XXIII.  Universal  Service      101 

XXIV.  War  for  Righteousness 105 

XXV.     The  Disciplines  of  Peace 109 

XXVI.     The  Fight  Against  Disease 114 

XXVII.     Qualities  that  Attract  Success:  1.  Devotion    .    .    .  118 

XXVIII.     Qualities  that  Attract  Success:  2.  Imagination  .    .  125 


xvi  Contents 

Chapter  Page 

XXIX.  Qualities  that  Attract  Success:  3.  Readiness  to  take 

Responsibility 129 

XXX.  Qualities  that  Attract  Success:  4.  Truth      ....  133 

XXXI.  Qualities  that  Attract  Success :  5.  Loyalty  ....  137 

XXXII.  Qualities  that  Attract  Success:  6.  Courage     .    .    .  140 

XXXIII.  Work 145 

XXXIV.  Team  Play 151 

XXXV.  Friendship      157 

XXXVI.  Enemies      162 

XXXVII.  Misfortune  as  Opportunity 168 

XXXVIII.  Making  the  Best  of  It 173 

XXXIX.  Our  Part  in  the  Plan 179 

XL.  Immortality 183 


CHAPTER  I 
GOD  CARES  FOR  A  BARREN  WORLD 

We  know  that  ages  ago  the  earth  was  seething,  siz- 
zUng  hot,  hke  molten  ii'on ;  but  it  is  hard  to  believe  it 
until  we  happen  to  feel  this  central  heat  still  at  work. 
One  afternoon  when  I  was  traveling  through  the 
Yellowstone  Park  and  examining  strange  blue  pools 
that  tasted  of  sulphur,  I  heard  voices  on  all  sides 
crying:  "The  Giant!  The  Giant  is  spouting!"  I 
looked  up,  and  everybody  was  racing, — galloping 
soldiers,  tearing  stage-coaches,  scurrying  nurse-maids, 
shouting  children,  breathless  tourists.  The  Giant 
Geyser  spouts  only  once  in  five  or  six  years  and  it 
never  lets  you  know  when  it  is  going  to  perform;  but 
there  it  was,  shooting  a  fierce,  white  stream  up  into 
the  sky.  It  was  a  wonderful  sight.  A  thunderous 
roar  sounded  from  the  bottom  of  the  crater  and  a  great 
cone  of  water  throbbed  up  in  enormous  pulsations. 
"Keep  out  of  the  steam!"  someone  shouted.  It  was 
scalding  hot. 

An  experience  like  this  makes  one  think  about  the 
beginning  of  the  world.  After  the  earth  had  cooled 
somewhat,  its  crust  began  to  form,  and  with  the  air 
mo\'ing  rapidly  about  it — as  we  sometimes  shake  a 
piece  of  paper  to  dry  the  wet  ink — the  earth  began  to 
dry.  It  became  less  hot,  and  its  crust  grew  thicker. 
By  and  by  clouds  condensed  around  the  earth  and 
a  great  sea  covered  all  the  land. 

"Strange  days  and  nights  those  must  have  been  on 
the  earth  when  the  great  sea  was  still  too  hot  for  hving 
things  to  exist  in  it.    The  land  above  the  water-line 


2  Our  Part  in  the  IVorld 

was  bare  rocks.  These  were  rapidly  being  crumbled 
by  the  action  of  the  air,  which  was  not  the  mild,  pleas- 
ant air  we  know,  but  was  full  of  destructive  gases, 
breathed  out  through  cracks  in  the  thin  crust  of  the 
earth  from  the  heated  mass  below.  If  you  stand  on 
the  edge  of  a  lava  lake,  like  one  of  those  on  the  islands 
of  the  Hawaiian  group,  the  stifling  fumes  that  rise 
make  you  feel  as  if  you  were  back  at  the  beginning  of 
the  earth's  history,  when  the  sohd  crust  was  just  a 
thin  film  on  an  unstable  sea  of  molten  rock,  and  this 
volcano  but  one  of  the  vast  niunber  of  openings  by 
which  the  boiling  lava  and  the  condensed  gases  found 
their  way  to  the  surface.  Then  the  rivers  ran  black 
with  the  waste  of  the  rocky  earth  they  furrowed,  and 
there  was  no  vegetation  to  soften  the  blackness  of  the 
landscape."  * 

Almost  such  a  barren  picture  as  this  the  first  verses 
of  Genesis  describe:  ''And  the  earth  was  waste  and 
void;  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep:  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  moved  (or  was  brooding)  upon  the 
face  of  the  waters."!  Waste  and  void:  they  are 
suggestive  words,  words  with  more  than  one  meaning. 
"Waste"  we  think  of  as  meaning  bare  or  desolate,  but 
also  useless.  We  have  waste-paper  baskets  to  toss 
away  papers  that  we  think  of  no  value,  and  waste 
barrels  in  which  to  throw  the  scraps  of  food  we  have 
done  with.  ''Void"  is  an  interesting  word  because  it 
means  absolutely  empty.  But  is  any  place  ever  en- 
tirely empty?  We  talk  about  empty  houses.  Are 
they  empty?  If  you  take  all  the  furniture,  rugs,  cur- 
tains and  books  out  of  a  room  it  looks  empty,  doesn't 
it?  But  something  else — air — rushes  in  to  fill  the 
space.  When  we  say,  then,  that  any  place  is  empty 
or  void  what  do  we  mean?     We  mean  empty  or  void 

*  Earth  and  Sky  Every  Child  Should  Know,  Julia  E.  Rogers,  pp.  134-135. 
t  Revised  Version. 


God  Cares  for  a  Barren  World  3 

of  interest.  There  is  nothing  in  it  that  we  care  for. 
"Oh,  there's  nothing  in  the  newspaper  to-night!" 
you  exclaim  as  you  throw  it  down.  Well,  there  are 
as  many  printed  columns  as  usual  and  they  may  be 
what  someone  else  most  wants  to  read,  but  they  don't 
hit  your  interest.  You  want  to  know  about  the 
National  Baseball  League,  and  there  is  not  a  word 
about  it  in  the  paper.     It  is  void  of  interest. 

WTiat,  then,  are  the  enduring  interests  of  the  world? 
We  care  for  our  family,  our  friends,  our  homes,  our  na- 
tion, for  books,  for  music,  for  our  basket-ball  team  or 
our  baseball  team.  We  care  for  the  friendly  animals 
who  seem  to  want  to  live  with  man, — horses,  dogs,  cana- 
ries. But  when  the  v/orld  began,  billions  of  years  ago, 
longer  indeed  than  any  man  can  really  think  of,  there 
was  little  we  should  have  loved  for  there  were  no  human 
beings,  nor  even  any  animals,  flowers  or  ferns  in 
existence. 

Have  you  ever  tried  to  think  what  it  means  to  say 
that  there  was  a  world  with  no  human  beings  in  it? 
There  w^ould  seem  to  be  nobody  to  know  about  it. 
The  rocks  and  clouds  do  not  understand  the  world. 
Can  the  universe  be  real  if  nobody  knows  about  it?  No ; 
and  this  is  very  important.  You  or  I  do  not  have  to 
be  there,  nor  anyone  we  know,  but  there  must  be 
someone  who  understands,  loves,  and  guides  even  this 
strange  world.  Who  is  this  maker  and  guide  of  the 
world?  The  Bible  says,  ''The  Spirit  of  God  was  brood- 
ing over  the  face  of  the  waters."  There  could  be  no 
truer  expression  than  this.  God  loved  the  world. 
He  saw  the  coming  life  of  His  creation  even  when  it  was 
barren  and  dark  and  waste.  Because  He  cared  for 
the  world  and  brooded  over  it.  His  love  filled  the 
universe  and  made  it  become  all  that  it  was  capable  of 
becoming.  He  saw  even  from  the  beginning  the 
coming  of  Christ. 


4  Our  Part  in  the  World 

In  the  winter,  when  the  ground  is  frozen  hard,  we 
begin  to  plan  for  summer;  to  think:  What  shall  I 
plant  in  my  garden?  Where  shall  I  go  in  vacation  time? 
Have  you  seen  the  baseball  field  deep  in  snow  and 
thought  how  soon  it  would  be  spring  and  the  field 
made  ready  to  be  played  on? 

"  Over  the  winter  glaciers 
I  see  the  summer  glow, 
And  through  the  wild-piled  snow-drift, 
The  warm  rosebuds  below."  * 

That  is  how  I  believe  God  saw  the  world  even  from 
the  beginning.  It  was  not  waste,  void,  or  dark  to 
Him,  because  He  cared  for  it  in  both  senses  of  the 
word  care.  He  loved  the  world  and  He  guided  it 
toward  its  own  ends. 

Several  years  ago  I  rode  down  the  Grand  Canon  of 
the  Colorado  River  in  Arizona  from  the  top — eight 
thousand  feet  high — to  the  river  bottom.  Oh!  but 
the  path  was  steep  and  stony  and  barren.  Nothing 
seemed  to  grow  in  the  hard  rocks.  How  could  any- 
thing grow?  I  thought.  The  air  is  so  dry  that  no 
flower  can  Uve.  The  rocks  are  so  hard  that  no  delicate 
root  could  penetrate  them.  And  then  with  startling 
suddenness  I  saw  rising  out  of  the  very  rock  a  glorious 
white  flower,  a  yucca  on  a  stem  eight  feet  high.  How- 
ever barren  the  soil  and  however  dry,  that  flower  had 
managed  not  merely  to  struggle  along  in  a  dead-alive 
way,  but  to  soar  up  and  shine  white  against  the  steel- 
blue  sky.  God  knew  it  would  flower  even  through 
the  waste.  Even  so  He  could  love  the  world  and  help 
it  to  become  itself  at  a  moment  when  the  earth 
looked  utterly  void.  When  men  love  one  another  as 
God  loves  the  whole  world  they  too  have  chances  to 
be  creators. 

*  R.  W.  Emerson,  "The  World  Soul,"  Poems,  p.  23,  Riverside  Edition. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  WORLD  AS  MOULDED  BY  MEN'S  HANDS 

There  is  no  animal  that  has  ever  constructed  a  tool. 
True,  the  beaver  makes  a  remarkable  dam  by  using 
his  strong,  flat  tail,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
thought  of  using  a  spade  to  help  him  dig.  Stags  in 
the  forest  fight  with  their  great  antlers,  but  they  do 
not  invent  swords  or  guns.  Birds  with  the  help  of 
their  bills  weave  intricate  nests,  but  they  have  never 
learned  to  make  or  to  use  a  needle  in  order  to  bind 
the  strands  firmly  together.  If  you  drop  a  bit  of  twine 
out  of  doors  in  springtime  you  may  see  an  English 
sparrow  dart  on  it  and  carry  it  streaming  behind  him 
up  to  his  nest,  but  as  for  weaving  a  bit  of  twine  on  a 
frame,  the  idea  never  seems  to  occur  to  him. 

So  man  is  sometimes  called  the  tool-using  animal. 
It  gives  an  extraordinary  power  to  be  able  to  use 
tools.  Even  strong  men  are  physically  weak  com- 
pared to  the  larger  animals.  Bulls,  oxen,  horses, 
could  knock  any  man  down,  and  yet  by  whips  and 
reins  men  can  control  them.  Men  cannot  run  nearly  as 
fast  as  many  animals,  but  men  can  invent  engines  that 
move  faster  than  the  swiftest  deer.  Men  have  weak 
teeth  compared  to  those  of  the  tiger,  but  they  have 
made  knives  to  cut  their  food,  and  they  can  sharpen 
them  to  the  finest  edge.  Men  cannot  draw  oxygen 
from  water,  like  fish,  but  they  have  invented  sub- 
marines in  which  the  air  is  brought  to  them  compressed 
and  stored  for  days.  Men  have  no  wings,  but  they 
have  invented  aeroplanes  to  sail  in  the  air  and  to  carry 
weight  no  birds  can  carry.     Men  have  short  sight 


6  Our  Part  in  the  World 

compared  to  eagles,  but  through  telescopes  they  can 
look  even  into  the  secrets  of  the  stars  and  the  moon. 
Men  have  weak  voices,  and  ears  that  unaided  can 
hear  only  for  a  short  distance,  yet  in  1915,  through 
the  invention  of  the  wireless  telephone,  the  breaking 
of  waves  on  the  Pacific  Coast  was  clearly  heard  by 
people  on  the  edge  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

This  power  of  invention,  of  creation,  sharply  differ- 
entiates men  from  beasts.  The  animals  live  their 
lives,  and  except  for  a  few  dens  they  have  scooped  out 
or  the  grass  and  herbs  that  they  have  eaten  the  world 
is  unchanged.  But  when  human  beings  come,  they 
can  begin,  with  God's  help,  to  be  creators,  and  change 
the  face  of  the  world. 

In  what  ways  do  men  mould  the  world? 

(1)  Men  mould  and  change  the  physical  world. 
Mountains  seem  far  more  permanent  than  men.  Men 
come  into  life  and  depart  from  life ;  mountains  remain. 
Yet  tunnels  have  been  driven  through  the  greatest 
mountains  of  Switzerland  and  hills  leveled  to  the 
ground.  ''If  ye  have  faith  even  as  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed,"  said  Jesus,  ''ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain.  Be 
ye  removed."  It  is  true;  it  has  been  done  again  and 
again  by  faithful  engineers;  not  at  one  stroke,  but 
with  equal  sureness. 

Irrigation  and  planting  are  other  ways  by  which 
men  change  the  face  of  the  physical  world.  In  going 
west  one  sees  arid  deserts  strewn  here  and  there  with 
the  bones  of  animals  who  have  died  of  thirst.  But 
men  learn  to  harness  the  river  high  up  the  stream  and 
its  water  is  turned  on  the  arid  land.  Then  it  becomes 
not  only  productive  land,  but  often  superlatively 
good.  The  desert  leaps  into  verdure,  corn  and  flowers 
spring  up,  houses  are  built,  trees  are  planted,  herds  of 
cows  and  sheep  graze  on  the  new  grass.  In  a  few 
years  the  country  is  unrecognizable. 


The  World  as  Moulded  by  Men's  Hands  7 

(2)  Men  change  the  vieaning  of  time  and  space. 
Many  scientific  inventions  do  not  affect  perceptibly 
the  outward  world  but  they  revise  the  mode  of  life  of 
all  who  use  them.  The  wireless  telegraph  and  the  tele- 
phone have  already  annulled  distance  for  us  and  the 
aeroplane  and  submarine  enlarge  our  highways.  Man 
is  taking  possession  not  only  of  the  earth  but  of  the 
air  and  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Here  is  an  astounding 
extract  clipped  from  a  business-like  Annual  Report 
of  the  American  Telephone  Company.  It  shows  what 
the  wireless  telephone  is  beginning  to  accomplish: 

''On  October  22,  1915,  from  the  Arlington  tower  in 
Virginia,  we  successfully  transmitted  speech  across 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  Eiffel  Tower  at  Paris.  .  .  . 
This  same  day  (when  speech  was  being  transmitted 
by  our  wireless  telephone  apparatus  at  Arlington  to  our 
engineer  and  the  French  military  officers  at  the  Eiffel 
Tower  in  Paris)  a  man  who  was  the  engineer  at  Pearl 
Harbor,  Hawaii,  together  with  an  officer  of  the  United 
States  Na\^,  overheard  the  words."  * 

Thus  through  the  genius  of  hard-working  inventors 
the  dullest  of  us  is  able  to  do  things  that  a  century 
ago  would  have  seemed  miracles.  It  is  not  we  who 
deserve  the  credit.  The  first  telegraphic  message  sent 
by  the  Morse  system  beat  out  words  that  are  forever 
true:    "What  hath  God  wrought!  " 

(3)  Men  bring  in  art  to  change  the  world.  Often 
enough  it  is  very  bad  art,  but  still  it  is  intentional 
decoration.  Look  around  your  dining-room.  Patterns 
and  designs  are  everywhere, — on  wall-paper,  furni- 
ture, mantelpiece,  curtains,  rugs,  forks  and  spoons, 
even  on  the  radiator  and  the  stove. 

In  far  greater  ways  the  art  of  man  changes  the 
world.  The  great  cathedrals  of  Europe  have  made 
their  impress  upon  many  generations,  so  that  all  civU- 

*  Report  of  the  American  Telephone  Co.,  1915. 


8  Our  Pari  in  the  World 

ized  nations  cried  out  with  horror  when  Rheims 
Cathedral  was  deUberately  ruined  by  German  shells. 
The  Statue  of  Liberty  in  New  York  Harbor  shouts  to 
every  incomer  who  has  ears  to  hear,  ''America  stands 
for  freedom  to  worship  God!"  Trumpet,, organ,  drum, 
and  violin,  these  tools  of  art,  rouse  and  change  men. 
Often  in  the  presence  of  martial  music  cowardice  is 
abashed  and  vanishes;  when  the  Angelus  rings,  the 
peasants  of  France  bow  confessing  their  sins. 

(4)  Great  men  change  the  world  of  thought.  Lincoln, 
brooding  over  the  nation's  problems,  was  reminded 
perhaps  of  some  family  quarrel  among  his  neighbors 
when  he  wrote  concerning  our  nation,  ''A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  That  thought  made 
history  and  a  new  South.  It  is  as  true  now  as  it  was 
when  Lincoln  said  it,  and  it  is  applicable  in  many 
places.  If  we  are  to  play  our  part  in  the  world,  we 
must  learn  to  work  together.  We  cannot  be  a  house 
divided  against  itself. 

I  spoke  once  to  a  college  president  about  the  difficul- 
ties of  handling  men  of  many  different  opinions. 

"Ever  been  in  a  cotton  mill?"  he  asked  quickly. 
''The  very  first  operation  is  the  carding-machine,  to 
straighten  out  the  tangled  threads.  You  can't  weave 
unless  all  the  threads  run  the  same  way."  Here  is  a 
thought  to  tie  to! 

(5)  Great  thinkers  change  the  actions  of  future  gen- 
erations as  well  as  of  their  own.  Less  than  one  hundred 
years  ago  prisoners  were  thought  of  as  degraded  men 
and  women,  fit  only  to  be  herded  together  and  kept 
from  doing  harm.  Now  expert  psychologists  examine 
criminals  with  tests  to  judge  fairly  what  they  are 
capable  of  doing  or  understanding.  They  are  given 
memory  tests:  to  look  at  a  picture  a  minute  and  recall 
what  they  saw.  They  are  given  easy  drawings  to 
imitate  or  blocks  to  fit  together — things  that  children 


The  World  as  Moulded  by  Men's  Hands  9 

of  different  ages  could  easily  do.  These  tests  show 
that  fully  one-third  of  our  prisoners  are  mentally  below 
par.  We  used  to  think  of  criminals  as  clever  and 
quick.  On  the  contrary,  many  of  them  are  under- 
witted.  And  from  this  thought  has  just  begun  a  new 
treatment  of  prisoners  that  you  in  your  generation 
must  carry  farther.  You  will  be  able  to  separate  the 
prisoners  who  are  feeble-minded,  and  so  do  not  under- 
stand what  doing  wrong  means,  from  the  others. 
Keep  them  from  hurting  themselves  or  others;  keep 
them  for  life  if  necessary ;  but  treat  them  as  sick  or  as 
childish,  not  as  wicked. 

(6)  In  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  a  man  is  his 
power  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  God.  Because  it  is 
more  important  to  know  God  than  to  know  anything 
else,  the  names  of  religious  leaders  stand  out  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Probably  you  know  very  few 
names  in  India  or  Arabia,  but  you  have  heard  of 
Buddha  and  of  Mohammed.  I  doubt  if  you  could 
tell  of  any  great  Chinese  general,  but  you  know  the 
name  of  Confucius.  You  know  it  because  these  re- 
ligious teachers  have  made  dents  in  the  world  through 
teaching  us  of  God.  And  if  it  is  true  that  the  names 
of  Confucius  and  Buddha  mean  something  to  us,  how 
much  more  does  the  name  of  Jesus.  Here  is  a  simple 
peasant  of  a  far  remote  town  of  Galilee  who,  because 
he  knew  and  loved  God  as  no  other  man  has  done, 
changed  the  whole  life  of  the  world.  More  than  nine- 
teen hundred  years  have  passed  since  his  birth,  yet 
there  is  no  one  more  alive  and  nearer  to  all  of  us,  no 
one  without  whom  our  lives  would  be  so  utterly 
changed,  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

Jesus  changed  the  outer  world  very  little  in  his 
lifetime.  Probably  as  a  carpenter  he  built  a  few  boats 
or  sheds,  made  a  few  yokes  for  oxen;  and  on  Lake 
Gennesaret,  whose  name  now  sounds  sacred  to  us,  he 


10  Our  Pari  in  the  World 

caught  fish.  But  since  his  death  he  has  utterly- 
changed  the  world.  Cathedrals,  churches,  meeting- 
houses, statues,  pictures,  poems,  chorales,  songs,  rise 
in  his  praise,  and  for  his  sake  missionaries  go  out  to 
risk  their  lives  among  the  heathen.  I  suppose  it  is 
true  to  say  that  the  greater  part  of  the  work  done  for 
the  sick,  for  prisoners,  for  the  handicapped,  for  the 
despairing,  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE   FAMILY 

It  seems  perfectly  natural  to  be  alive,  yet  it  is  really 
marvelous,  for  the  whole  earth  had  to  be  made  ready 
for  oiu"  coming.  For  untold  centuries  we  could  not 
have  lived  on  it  at  all.  It  was  scorching  hot,  barren, 
and,  except  in  God's  thought,  lifeless.  And  when  the 
beginnings  of  life  were  once  estabhshed  in  ways  that 
nobody  understands,  even  then  danger  for  the  new 
lives  was  on  every  hand.  The  early  forms  of  amoeba 
had.  Professor  Shaler  tells  us,  only  one  chance  in  a 
hundred  thousand  to  live.  I  once  heard  of  a  very 
sick  man  who  asked  whether  he  was  going  to  die. 
"Well,"  answered  the  doctor,  ''you  have  one  chance 
in  a  hundred  to  get  well."  ''AH  right,"  repUed  the 
patient,  cheerfully,  "I'll  take  the  one  chance."  Every 
one  of  us  has  had  far  less  chance  than  one  in  a  hundred 
to  be  alive  at  all.     Yet  here  we  are. 

You  have  often  thought,  of  course,  how  it  is  that 
new  life  is  formed.  Perhaps  j'ou  have  read  about 
it  in  encyclopedias.  Boys  and  girls  do,  and  no 
wonder,  for  it  is  extraordinarily  interesting  and 
important.  In  early  organisms,  such  as  the  jelly- 
like mass  called  amoeba,  new  families  are  made 
just  by  division.  The  parent  spontaneously  divides 
into  several  fairly  equal  parts,  as  an  orange  might  be 
divided  into  its  segments.  This  was  all  very  well  as 
long  as  there  were  no  special  organs,  but  if  we  comph- 
cated  beings  were  divided  in  such  a  way  there  would 
not  be  hearts  or  eyes  or  arms  enough  to  go  round. 
Then  the  next  step  was  taken.     New  Hfe  was  made 


12  Our  Part  in  the  World 

by  buds.  The  sea-anemones  bud  from  a  parent 
stock,  and  when  they  are  complete  in  the  needed  parts 
they  are  gently  detached  and  swim  off.  Some  buds, 
such  as  the  corals  and  the  sponges,  and  all  our  flower 
buds  remain  on  the  parent  stock,  though  horticultu- 
rists know  how  to  cut  through  a  stem  with  a  bud  on 
it,  plant  it  in  sand,  and  let  it  root  and  become  an 
entirely  separate  plant. 

Some  of  the  scientists  who  study  evolutionary  pro- 
cesses think  that  one  reason  why  this  budding  method 
was  outgrown  is  that  it  became  important  to  have 
two  parents  instead  of  one.  Parents  are  unlike  one 
another.  They  naturally  have  different  gifts  to  bring 
to  the  new  life  they  are  privileged  to  create.  Each 
can  give  its  best  through  inheritance  and  through 
personal  influence.  For  a  long  time,  however,  the 
father  or  mother  gave  little  besides  inheritance  to  the 
new  child.  ''The  seed  or  the  egg,"  writes  Professor 
Shaler,  ''was  sent  forth  from  the  parent,  but  it  had  to 
shift  for  itself  to  find  food  or  shelter."  And  what 
happened  was,  of  course,  that  only  one  seed  or  spore 
or  one  tiny  egg  in  one  hundred  thousand  survived  to 
grow  up.  "Therefore  we  find  that  about  as  soon  as 
the  spores  and  germs  are  contrived  there  begins  a 
series  of  experiments  in  the  way  of  providing  food 
along  with  them  so  that  the  new  life  may  be  helped 
a  certain  distance  on  its  way."*  This  help  more 
and  more  means  strain  for  the  parents  and  especially 
for  the  mother.  Some  moths  die  invariably  in  de- 
positing their  eggs.  Among  the  birds  anyone  can  see 
how  busy  the  parents  are  kept,  feeding  their  clamorous 
brood. 

But  for  the  human  child  even  greater  care  and  sac- 
rifice is  given.  If  the  tiny  eggs  from  which  we  all 
start  were  exposed  to  the  air  or  protected  only  as  birds 

*  Nathaniel  S.  Shaler,  The  Individual,  D.  Appleton,  1900. 


The  Family  13 

protect  their  eggs,  almost  all  would  die.  To  keep 
babies  safe  they  are  not  only  developed  within  the 
body  of  their  mother  but  fed  by  her  and  cared  for  by 
her  for  years  ^^•hen  if  left  to  themselves  they  would  be 
absolutely  helpless.  A  calf  can  feed  itself  in  a  few 
weeks;  a  baby  of  a  year  would  die  with  milk  in  a  pail 
beside  it  unless  it  were  fed. 

And  so  not  only  must  the  earth  be  made  ready  from 
the  beginning  for  our  coming,  but  every  single  one  of 
our  direct  ancestors  must  have  been  kept  alive  by 
someone's  protecting  care,  and  then  must  have  helped 
to  keep  some  son  or  daughter  alive.  Not  one  of  us 
could  be  here  except  for  the  self-sacrifice  of  genera- 
tions upon  generations  above  us. 

In  The  Promised  Land,  Mary  Antin  tells  about 
her  mother's  engagement  and  marriage.  Among  the 
Jews  in  Russia  where  ]\Iary  Antin  was  born,  the  strange 
custom  prevailed  of  letting  all  the  rest  of  the  family 
circle  except  the  bride  and  groom  discuss  whether  they 
should  be  married.  When  Mary  Antin's  mother  was 
betrothed,  a  troublesome  cousin,  a  strange  lady 
dressed  in  odds  and  ends  with  a  scarlet  flower  stuck 
in  her  wig,  made  endless  objections.  It  was  hours 
before  she  could  be  silenced  and  the  contract  signed. 
Of  this  incident  Mary  Antin  writes:  ''That  is  the  way 
my  fate  was  sealed.  It  gives  me  a  shudder  of  wonder 
to  think  what  a  narrow  escape  I  had;  I  came  so  near 
not  being  born  at  all.  If  the  beggarly  cousin  with 
the  frowsy  wig  had  prevailed  upon  her  family  and 
broken  off  the  match,  then  my  mother  would  not  have 
married  my  father,  and  I  should  at  this  moment  be 
an  unborn  possibility  in  a  philosopher's  brain.  It  is 
right  that  I  should  pick  my  words  most  carefully,  and 
meditate  over  every  comma,  because  I  am  describing 
miracles  too  great  for  careless  utterance. 

*'If   I  had  died  after  my  first  breath,  my  history 


14  Our  Part  in  the  World 

would  still  be  worth  recording.  For  before  I  could 
lie  on  my  mother's  breast,  the  earth  had  to  be  pre- 
pared, and  the  stars  had  to  take  their  places;  a  million 
races  had  to  die,  testing  the  laws  of  life;  and  a  boy  and 
girl  had  to  be  bound  for  life  to  watch  together  for  my 
coming.  I  was  millions  of  years  on  the  way,  and  I 
came  through  the  seas  of  chance,  over  the  fiery  moun- 
tain of  law,  by  the  zigzag  path  of  human  possibihty. 
Multitudes  were  pushed  back  into  the  abyss  of  non- 
existence, that  I  should  have  way  to  creep  into  being. 
And  at  the  last,  when  I  stood  at  the  gate  of  life,  a 
weazen-faced  fishwife,  who  had  not  wit  enough  to 
support  herself,  came  near  shutting  me  out. 

''Such  creatures  of  accident  are  we,  liable  to  a  thou- 
sand deaths  before  we  are  born.  But  once  we  are 
here,  we  may  create  our  own  world,  if  we  choose."* 

You  see,  strange  as  it  sounds,  every  living  being  is 
like  someone  who  has  been  saved  in  a  shipwreck  by 
the  courage  of  the  captain  and  crew.  We  have  es- 
caped a  million  dangers  that  might  have  prevented 
our  being  born.  And  we  are  alive  and  well  and  strong 
only  because  for  century  after  century  there  has  been 
family  life.  Family  life  is  a  ship  that  has  breasted  all 
storms  and  brought  us  safe  here.  Without  the  family 
life  behind  us  in  the  past  no  one  of  us  would  be  alive. 
The  future  side  of  this  truth  is  equally  clear.  Unless 
we  make  the  right  kind  of  family  of  our  own  there 
will  be  no  chance  for  those  who  come  after  us.  Over 
the  hills  of  Greece  in  olden  times  messengers  running 
with  torches  bore  tidings  important  to  the  nation. 
Running  till  they  were  exhausted  they  surrendered 
their  torch  to  fresh  messengers.  Family  life  is  like 
a  lighted  torch.  We  have  received  it  burning.  We 
are  next  in  line.  It  is  our  turn  to  pass  on  the  torch 
undimmed. 

*  Mary  Antin,  The  Promised  Land,  pp.  58,  59,  Houghton  MiflSin  Com- 
pany, 1912. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   NEIGHBORHOOD 

There  are  different  kinds  of  neighborhood.  Being 
near  anything  may  not  be  in  any  true  sense  touching 
it  in  space  or  even  Uving  with  it  in  time.  For  many 
things  or  people  that  are  physically  near  to  us  do  not 
interest  us  at  all,  and  without  interest  there  is  no 
real  neighborhood.  A  baseball  field  half  a  mile  away 
may  be  much  nearer  to  you  than  a  banking  office  next 
door.  A  friend  in  California  may  be  more  of  a  neigh- 
bor, to  all  intents  and  purposes,  than  the  old  lady 
whose  house  touches  yours.  Have  you  ever  thought 
how  much  nearer  the  sun  seems  than  the  moon,  though 
compared  to  the  distance  of  the  sun  from  the  earth, 
the  moon  is  just  round  the  corner  from  us?  The 
sun  is  near  because  we  live  by  its  warmth  and  light. 
We  literaUy  depend  on  the  sun.  Without  its  heat 
we  should  die  both  from  cold  and  from  want  of  light 
and  vegetation.  We  depend  on  the  sun  for  light  and 
warmth  to  sustain  our  physical  existence  in  some- 
thing of  the  same  way  that  we  depend  on  a  friend 
for  insight  and  love.  The  sun  and  the  friend  seem 
near. 

As  it  is  true  that  the  remote  in  space  may  be  closer 
than  the  physically  near,  so  it  is  with  time.  One 
distant  day  may  be  nearer  to  us  all  than  any  other 
day.  Our  birthdays  make  us  near  to  our  family  and 
friends,  but  the  birthday  of  Christ  makes  all  Chris- 
tians near  to  one  another.  Why  is  this?  Because 
Jesus  took  us,  every  one,  into  his  family,  accepted  us 
as  his  friend.  And  that  makes  us  neighbors  one  to 
another  through  him.  ^__,- 


16  Our  Part  in  the  V/orld 

On  Christmas  Eve  it  is  a  custom  in  my  city  to  throw 
up  the  window  shades  and  put  candles  in  every  window. 
Then  several  hundred  of  us  march  down  the  streets 
with  lanterns,  singing  carols  with  the  neighbors  who 
are  well  and  to  the  neighbors  who  are  ill  or  in  trouble. 

On  Christmas  Eve  in  1915  such  a  group  sang 
''Adeste  Fideles"  and  ''Silent  Night"  before  the  house 
of  a  young  widow  married  but  a  year,  whose  husband 
had  just  been  killed  while  valiantly  charging  on  the 
plains  of  Flanders.  As  we  stood  there  singing,  she 
came  quickly  to  the  candle-lighted  window,  her  tiny 
baby  in  her  arms,  and  looking  down  greeted  us,  smihng, 
radiant,  triumphant,  and  at  peace.  For  a  moment  we 
strangers  looked  into  her  soul  and  saw  its  faithful 
courage.  So  I  like  to  think  of  Christmas  Eve  as  a 
time  when  all  curtains  are  drawn  aside,  in  our  houses 
and  in  our  hearts,  because  we  celebrate  the  birth  of 
him  who  called  us  all  his  friends  and  so  makes  us 
neighbors  one  to  another. 

How  do  we  become  neighbors  to  anyone?  Some 
people  are  born  neighborly,  some  acquire  neighborli- 
ness,  and  some  have  neighborliness  thrust  upon  them. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  most  neighborly  men 
the  world  has  ever  known. 

There  is  a  good  story  about  Lincoln's  neighborhness 
told  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell  in  He  Knew  Lincoln.  It  is  a 
characteristic  story,  even  if  the  incident  did  not  liter- 
ally happen.  Aunt  Sally  Lowdy  had  been  like  a 
mother  to  Lincoln  when  he  lived  in  the  little  town  of 
New  Salem,  and  when  he  was  elected  President  she 
traveled  up  to  Springfield  to  see  him.  A  crowd  of  people 
was  gathered  round  Lincoln,  and  Aunt  Sally  got  ''kind 
of  scared,"  as  she  put  it.  The  story  is  told  in  the  lan- 
guage of  one  of  the  neighbors. 

"Well,  Aunt  Sally  stood  lookin'  kind  of  scared 
seein'   so  many  strangers  and  not  knowin'  precisely 


The  Neighborhood  17 

what  to  do,  when  ]\Ir.  Lincohi  spied  her.  Quick  as  a 
wink  he  said,  'Excuse  me,  gentlemen,'  and  he  just 
rushed  over  to  that  old  woman  and  shook  hands  with 
both  of  his'n  and  saj's:  'Now,  Aunt  Sally,  this  is  real 
kind  of  you  to  come  and  see  me.  How  are  you  and 
how's  Jake? '  (Jake  was  her  boy.)  '  Come  right  over 
here,'  and  he  led  her  over,  as  if  she  was  the  biggest 
lady  in  Illinois,  and  says:  'Gentlemen,  this  is  a  good 
old  friend  of  mine.  She  can  make  the  best  flapjacks 
you  ever  tasted.'  Aunt  Sally  was  just  as  pink  as  a 
rosy — she  was  tickled.  And  she  says:  'Abe,  I  had 
to  come  to  say  good-bye.  ...  I  thought  I'd  come 
and  bring  you  a  present.  Knit  'em  myself';  and  I'll 
be  blamed  if  that  old  lady  didn't  pull  out  a  great  big 
pair  of  yarn  socks  and  hand  'em  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"Well,  sir,  it  was  the  funniest  thing  to  see  jMr. 
Lincoln  take  them  socks  and  hold  'em  up  by  the  toes. 
Then  he  laid  'em  down  and  he  took  Aunt  Sally's  hand 
and  he  says  tender-like:  'Aunt  Sally,  you  couldn't  a' 
done  nothin'  which  would  have  pleased  me  better. 
I'll  take  'em  to  Washington  and  wear  'em  and  think 
of  you  when  I  do  it.' "  * 

Lincoln  was  naturally  neighborly,  but  some  of  us 
are  shy  or  self-conscious,  and  have  to  overcome  these 
traits  in  order  to  be  of  use.  Prof.  Nathaniel  Shaler, 
in  his  book  called  The  Neighbor,  says  that  as  a  child  he 
had  a  horror  of  seeing  anyone  who  was  badly  wounded 
or  in  any  way  unnatural.  Once,  when  he  was  twelve 
years  old,  a  surgeon  asked  the  boy  to  help  him  in 
working  over  the  gruesome  wounds  of  a  very  sick  man. 
Shaler  felt  terrified  at  first,  and  then,  as  he  actually 
touched  with  his  hands  the  wounded  body,  suddenly 
all  his  fear  vanished,  and  to  his  astonishment  he  found 
that  the  man  was  becoming  dear  to  him.     He  had 

*  Condensed   from  He  Knew  Lincoln,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell,   McClure, 
Phillips  &  Co. 


18  Our  Part  in  the  World 

touched  the  sick  man  and  was  trying  to  help  him. 
''That  blessed  touch,"  says  Professor  Shaler,  ''awakens 
the  sense  of  kinship  as  nothing  else  does."  *  So  if 
you  do  not  love  your  neighbor,  try  to  help  him  and 
you  will  find  your  love  beginning  to  grow. 

It  seems  as  if,  when  Jesus  told  the  greatest  of  all 
stories  of  neighborliness,  the  story  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, he  must  have  thought  that  neighborhness  means 
opportunity  to  help.  "And  who  is  my  neighbor?" 
asked  the  lawyer,  seeking  to  justify  the  fact  that  he 
did  not  love  his  neighbor  as  himself.  Jesus  was  too 
wise  to  answer  by  a  list  of  people  or  by  marking  off 
the  district  where  the  lawyer  lived  as  his  neighbor- 
hood. He  told  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan  and 
through  it  let  the  lawyer  answer  his  own  question, 
"Which  now  of  these  three,  thinkest  thou,  was  neighbor 
unto  him  that  fell  among  the  thieves?  And  he  said. 
He  that  showed  mercy  on  him.  Then  said  Jesus  unto 
him,  Go  thou  and  do  likewise." 

Jesus  knew  that  helping  those  in  trouble  would  make 
the  lawyer  begin  to  care  for  them.  It  means  some- 
thing that  we  use  this  word  "care"  in  two  senses. 
When  we  have  cared  for  people  we  are  apt  to  love 
them,  to  care  for  them.  Is  that  one  of  the  reasons 
why  God  loves  us,  God,  from  whose  nearness  we  can- 
not escape? 

*  The  Neighbor,  by  N.  S.  Shaler,  Houghton   Mifflin    Company,  1904, 
p.  32. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE   CITY 

We  are  accustomed  to  seeing  cities.  But  once  I 
remember  asking  myself— \\Tiat  is  a  city?  Why  does 
a  city  happen?  The  farm  supports  itself  by  its  prod- 
uce—cows, fruit  or  hay;  the  factory  by  its  steel,  or 
cloth,  or  shoes.  How  does  a  city  support  itself?  It 
often  produces  very  httle,  for  the  land  is  too  costly  for 
farming  or  factories. 

The  city  distributes.  Its  business  is  largely  collect- 
ing and  shipping  the  fruits  of  others'  labor.  Effective 
distribution  requires  free  space.  Have  you  noticed 
how  crowded  the  business  streets  become  and  how 
often  the  smaller  alleys  are  blocked  by  barrels,  gar- 
bage, hand-carts  and  children?  You  can  help  here. 
Instead  of  interrupting  traffic,  take  care  not  to  block 
any  street,  move  quickly,  keep  to  the  right.  Always 
give  women  and  old  people  the  outer  seats  in  open 
cars,  so  that  they  can  get  out  easily  and  quickly. 

The  city  means  also  that  we  want  to  be  together. 
That  is  really  its  deepest  reason  for  existence.  The 
city  is  gay,  because  many  people  meet  there,  and 
because  when  large  numbers  come  together  it  is  easy 
and  profitable  to  give  plays,  music,  dances,  mo\dng- 
picture  shows.  But  though  it  is  gay,  the  city  in  some 
quarters  is  almost  always  full  of  illness  and  poverty. 
Why  does  this  happen?  In  the  great  seaports  hke 
New  York,  Boston,  New  Orleans,  and  San  Francisco,  it 
is,  I  suppose,  partly  because  among  the  many  aliens  who 
arrive  large  numbers  lack  sufficient  enterprise  to  go 
further.  Then,  since  rent  and  food  are  high,  many 
of  them  get  into  debt  or  five  in  unsanitary  quarters. 


20  Our  Part  in  the  World 

But  the  overcrowding  and  disease  in  cities  is  also  due 
partly  to  the  fact  that  people  are  sociable.  They  do 
not  want  to  live  out  in  the  suburbs  where  land  is  cheaper 
and  the  air  is  freer  from  germs.  They  prefer  comrade- 
ship and  close  quarters  to  solitude  and  fresh  air. 

Cities  mean,  then,  both  opportunities  to  have  a  good 
time  and  opportunities  to  help  people  who  are  having 
a  very  bad  time.  Because  of  this  crowding  and  of 
these  unsanitary  conditions,  each  city  or  town  needs 
the  help  of  every  citizen.  If  you  have  been  to  a  camp 
with  a  party  of  boys  and  girls,  you  will  have  found  out 
how  essential  is  sanitary  care  whenever  we  have  large 
numbers  together.  Diseases  spread  quickly  in  crowded 
quarters,  malaria  and  yellow  fever  are  communicated 
by  mosquitoes,  and  our  common  fly  is  being  watched 
as  a  suspicious  character.  You  can  help  toward  the 
health  of  your  town  by  encouraging  and  supporting 
cleanliness  and  freedom  from  disease-carrying  insects. 
To  keep  the  streets  clear  and  clean,  to  destroy  mos- 
quitoes, caterpillars,  and  flies, — these  are  useful  things 
to  do.     I  hope  you  will  all  take  a  part  in  them. 

But  there  is  something  far  more  significant  about 
many  of  our  cities,  especially  those  in  the  eastern  part 
of  the  United  States;  they  have  stood  for  religious 
freedom, — the  opportunity  to  worship  God. 

Nearly  two  hundred  years  ago,  in  1740,  a  band  of 
Moravians,  followers  of  John  Huss,  came  across  the 
seas  to  Eastern  Pennsylvania  and  established  little 
towns,  in  which  to  worship  God  without  the  fear  of 
persecution.  One  group  of  villages  they  named  Beth- 
lehem, Nazareth,  and  Emmaus.  The  villages  sur- 
vive. The  Moravian  Church,  still  at  Bethlehem, 
numbers  two  thousand  parishioners:  still  from  the 
tower  trombones  announce  by  special  calls  the  death 
of  an  old  man,  a  young  man,  a  woman  or  a  child. 
Still  on  Easter  Day  a  service  of  resurrection  is  held  in 


The   City  21 

the  peaceful  Moravian  cemetery  where  Indians  and 
German  settlers  lie  side  by  side.  But  what  does 
Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania,  mean  to  most  people? 
\Miat  word  is  commonly  put  next  to  ''Bethlehem"? 
''Steel  Works"!  They  send  their  black  smoke  up  out 
of  the  valley,  and  at  the  shriek  of  their  whistle  the 
workers  awake  each  morning.  Which  is  it  better  for 
a  city  to  have — steel  works  dominant,  or  church 
towers  calling  the  worshippers  to  praise  God?  Some 
of  you  will  say, — Both.  Well,  if  we  are  to  have  both 
church-towers  and  the  chimnej^s  of  steel  works  on  the 
horizon,  in  what  ways  can  we  keep  the  church  spire 
as  the  more  important,  if  not  the  highest,  object  in  the 
city?  Only  by  a  strong,  personal  devotion  toward  our 
own  church,  combined  with  breadth  of  sympathy 
toward  every  religion. 

Every  genuine  churchgoer  is  trying  to  serve  God. 
Let  us  respect  and  honor  him.  Honor  the  Catholics 
with  their  marvelous  historic  past.  Honor  each 
Protestant  sect  and  try  to  see  the  good  in  its  special 
doctrines.  Honor  the  Jews.  We  owe  more  to  them 
than  to  any  other  race.  Honor  the  Russian  church  with 
its  glorious  music.  We  are  liberals.  Let  us  show  it 
both  by  never  running  down  other  sects  or  nations,  and 
by  untiring  service  to  our  individual  church  and  faith. 

Prepare,  then,  to  serve  your  city  and  to  find  out 
your  best  form  of  service.  The  citizens  of  a  city,  if 
they  care  enough,  can  make  their  city  famous.  I  know 
a  man,  Major  Henry  L.  Higginson,  who  for  sixty  years 
has  devoted  himself  to  the  welfare  of  his  city.  When 
he  was  still  in  college  Lincoln's  call  for  volunteers 
roused  him  and  he  went  to  the  front.  One  of  his 
comrades  in  the  Civil  War,  Charles  Lowell,  wrote  just 
before  he  died,  to  Major  Higginson: — 

"Don't  grow  rich;  if  you  once  begin  you'll  find  it 
much  more  difficult  to  be  a  useful  citizen.    Don't  seek 


22  Our  Part  in  the  World 

office;  but  don't  ' disremember '  that  the  useful  citizen 
holds  his  time,  his  trouble,  his  money,  and  his  life 
always  ready  at  the  hint  of  his  country.  The  useful 
citizen  is  a  mighty  unpretending  hero;  but  we  are 
not  going  to  have  a  country  very  long  unless  such 
heroism  is  developed.  There!  what  a  stale  sermon 
I'm  preaching!  But,  being  a  soldier,  it  does  seem  to 
me  that  I  should  like  nothing  so  well  as  being  a  useful 
citizen."* 

Major  Higginson  has  followed  this  advice.  Boston 
recognizes  him  as  leader  in  every  movement  for  the 
city  or  the  nation.  There  comes  a  fire  which  leaves 
families  homeless;  you  will  find  Major  Higginson  both 
giving  and  collecting  money  for  relief.  The  people 
have  little  music  of  high  quality;  Major  Higginson 
puts  his  hand  very  deep  into  his  pocket  and  makes 
possible  the  Symphony  Orchestra.  To  endow  these 
concerts  he  keeps  on  working  in  his  banking  office 
long  after  the  doctors  have  advised  him  to  stop.  ''I 
want  people  always  to  have  music,"  is  all  he  says. 
The  Harvard  students  need  a  playground  for  athletics. 
He  gives  the  beautiful  ''Soldiers'  Field,"  and  names  it 
for  his  friends.  Radcliffe  needs  a  treasurer.  He  not 
only  serves  freely,  but  if  investments  go  wrong  he  makes 
up  the  difference.  Harvard  men  are  separated  into 
small,  clubs.  He  gathers  them  under  one  roof  by  giving 
the  Harvard  Union  building,  a  club-house  open  to  all. 

Major  Higginson  is,  of  course,  rich  in  this  world's 
goods,  but  he  thinks  of  himself  not  as  a  possessor  of 
wealth,  but  as  a  trustee.  Our  money  and  our  time 
and  our  strength  are  never  just  our  own.  Every  cent 
and  every  minute  we  owe  to  God  in  the  service  of  his 
children.  The  city  you  live  in  is  a  central  point  for 
your  service.  You  are  one  of  the  trustees  to  guard  and 
further  its  life. 

*  Four  Addresses,  Henry   Lee    Higginson,    The   Merrymount  Press, 
Boston,  1902,  p.  26. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AMERICA,  AND  WHAT  IT  STANDS  FOR 

1.    Home  and  Freedom 

Some  months  ago  I  was  talking  with  a  distinguished 
immigrant  who  had  been  in  America  six  years.  His 
experience  in  his  own  country  had  been  full  of  pain  be- 
cause his  religion,  for  which  he  cared  more  than  for 
anything  else  in  the  world,  was  looked  down  upon.  He 
seemed  filled  with  happiness  to  live  in  the  freedom  of 
the  United  States,  and  in  these  words  he  spoke  of  his 
J03':  "I  can  never  think  of  America  without  adding  to 
myself,  'Holy  America!'"  As  I  heard  the  thrill  of 
reverence  in  his  voice  I  felt  almost  ashamed,  for  I  had 
taken  the  joy  of  living  in  America  too  much  for  granted. 
I  asked  myself,  What  that  is  holy  does  America  stand 
for?  Then  I  thought  that  I  might  find  an  answer 
by  looking  closely  at  the  words  of  our  national  hymn, 
''My  Country,  'tis  of  Thee." 

The  first  thought  of  America  to  each  of  us  is,  as  our 
own  country,  our  home.  Everybody  instinctively  and 
rightly  likes  his  own  home  best.  ''The  Naulahka," 
one  of  Ivipling's  American-Indian  stories,  centres 
round  the  hero's  passion  for  the  rough  and  undeveloped 
town  of  Topaz.  He  will  talk  about  it  for  hours,  dwell- 
ing on  its  magnificent  prospects.  He  is  not  only  sure 
that  it  is  going  to  be  the  most  phenomenal  city  in  the 
United  States,  but  he  is  determined  to  make  it  so.  The 
new  railroad  line  must  be  brought  to  run  through 
Topaz,  for  Tarvin  is  convinced  that  Topaz  will  be  the 
greatest  railroad  centre  in  the  State.  Tarvin's  efforts 
to  win  the  railroad  line  for  Topaz  take  him  as  far  as 


24  Our  Part  in  the  World 

India,  but  in  all  India  he  can  see  nothing  that  com- 
pares with  the  glory  of  Topaz:  Topaz  has  the  glory  of 
home. 

Somewhat  like  this  proud  passion  for  his  town  may 
be  our  love  of  the  United  States,  our  country.  In  The 
Man  without  a  Country,  by  Edward  Everett  Hale,  you 
will  find  perhaps  the  best  story  ever  written  about  love 
of  America. 

All  nations  feel  this  same  love  of  country.  Up  in 
Labrador  the  fisher-folk  starve  and  suffer,  year  by 
year,  rather  than  leave  their  home.  Dr.  Grenfell  may 
tell  them  of  the  sunny  South,  where  there  is  work  and 
plenty,  but  most  of  them  prefer  icy  Labrador.  Men 
of  any  race  can  sing  ''My  Country,  'tis  of  Thee," 
though  each  singer  in  a  group  may  think  of  a  different 
nation.  And  all  nations  may  think  of  their  home  as 
holy,  because  it  is  the  land  where  their  fathers  died. 

But  all  nations  cannot  say  that  their  country  is  a 
land  of  liberty.  America,  with  its  inheritance  from 
the  Barons  at  Runnymede,  seems  to  stand  especially 
for  freedom,  and  for  the  chance  to  help  other  nations  to 
obtain  or  preserve  their  freedom.  This  is  easily  said, 
but  we  must  go  deeper.  What  does  freedom  involve? 
If  you  are  free  to  do  right,  it  is  clear  that  you  are  free 
to  do  wrong.  If  you  have  freedom  of  speech,  cannot 
you  speak  blasphemous  words  as  well  as  noble  ones? 
Yes,  freedom  always  means  the  tremendous  fact  of 
moral  choice.  God  gives  us  freedom  to  do  right.  Are 
we  in  any  degree  worthy  of  it? 

Let  us  go  deeper  still  into  the  meaning  of  freedom. 
Clearly  in  America  our  choices  are  not  wholly  free. 
We  have  innumerable  laws  forbidding  many  a  pleasant 
act,  like  playing  baseball  in  city  streets,  or  riding 
bicycles  on  the  sidewalk.  The  United  States  seems 
to  say,  You  shall  be  free,  but  not  free  to  trouble  your 
neighbors  or  interfere  with  their  freedom.     Freedom 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  25 

in  a  democracy  does  not  in  the  least  mean  doing  just 
what  you  please,  or  even  doing  just  what  you  think  it 
is  right  to  do.  Anarchists  might  think  it  right  to 
destroy  the  government ;  labor  union  leaders  sometimes 
think  it  right  forcibly  to  prevent  outsiders  from  taking 
their  places  at  work  during  a  strike;  mothers  may 
think  it  right  not  to  vaccinate  their  children  who  are 
attending  school, — and  still  the  laws  of  the  State  en- 
force obedience. 

Our  nation  believes  usually  in  freedom  of  speech,  be- 
cause it  knows  that  when  the  kettle  is  boiling  inside, 
it  is  safer  to  let  out  the  steam.  We  know,  too,  that 
acts  or  ideas  that  seem  shocking  to  our  generation  may 
have  a  value  in  them  that  we  need  to  know.  But 
there  are  certain  things  you  are  not  permitted  even 
to  say:  You  can  be  tried  in  court  if  you  bear  false 
witness  against  j'our  neighbor;  if  you  slander  his 
character;  if  you  denounce  the  government  of  the 
United  States;  if  you  use  indecent  language;  if  you 
induce  soldiers  to  desert  in  time  of  war. 

And  the  law^s  which  forbid  these  things  are  right. 
Freedom  is  never  the  chance  to  do  or  to  say  whatever 
you  please.     There  is,  as  St.  Paul  said,  a  law  of  liberty. 

The  supreme  hberty  of  America  is  freedom  to  wor- 
ship God. 

Jesus  said:  " Other  sheep  I  have  which  are  not  of  this 
fold.  Them  also  I  must  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  my 
voice  and  I  will  be  their  shepherd."  We  in  America 
believe  that  anyone  who  loves  God  must  be  free  to 
worship  Him  in  his  own  truest  w^ay,  not  forced  into 
conformity  wdth  others,  and  neither  scorned  nor  perse- 
cuted for  following  his  own  beliefs. 

In  May,  1378,  in  the  high-vaulted  hall  of  Black- 
friars  in  London,  the  priests  of  England  gathered  to- 
gether to  try  John  Wycliffe  for  heresy.  He  was  an 
old  man  and  quite  alone.     He  had  spent  his  life  in 


26  Our  Part  in  the  World 

preaching  and  in  study  of  the  Scriptures.  His  great- 
est ambition  was  to  translate  the  Bible  into  English 
so  that  the  common  people  could  read  it,  and  the  life 
of  Jesus  no  longer  be  a  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain 
sealed. 

"The  sacred  Scriptures,"  he  said,  ''are  the  property 
of  the  people,  and  one  which  no  one  should  be  allowed 
to  wrest  from  them.  .  .  .  Christ  and  his  apostles  con- 
verted the  world  by  making  known  the  Scriptures  to 
men  in  a  form  familiar  to  them  .  .  .  and  I  pray  with  all 
my  heart  that  through  doing  the  things  contained  in 
this  book,  we  may  all  together  come  to  the  everlasting 
hfe."* 

Can  you  imagine  that  any  man  in  America  could  be 
condemned  for  such  teaching?  No,  nor  in  England 
now,  for  freedom  in  religious  worship  has  spread  far 
and  wide.  Indeed,  our  danger  lies  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. To  worship  God  involves  no  danger,  no  per- 
secution, no  scorn.  I  sometimes  wish  it  were  danger- 
ous; for  to  be  easy-going  in  relation  to  one's  religious 
faith  is  more  often  than  not  to  be  careless,  forgetful, 
asleep.  Take  every  chance,  then,  to  stand  up  for  your 
religion,  that  your  freedom  may  not  be  indifference. 

Here  is  a  valiant  message  from  the  history  of  the 
early  settlement  of  our  country.  John  Winthrop,  the 
first  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  was  a  wealthy  lawyer 
of  Suffolk,  England.  He  sold  all  his  property  and  for 
the  sake  of  religious  freedom  came  out  to  help  the  little 
sea-girt  colony  in  New  England.  That  first  winter 
must  have  been  a  disheartening  experience.  We  often 
think  of  the  attacks  by  Indians  in  early  Colonial  days 
as  exciting  and  dramatic.  But  it  is  far  easier  to  re- 
sist attack  when  you  are  well  armed  and  well  fed 
than  when  you  are  short  of  arms,  half-starved,  and 
sick.     On    many  a  cold  morning  in  that  first  wintei' 

*  Quoted  by  Smythe,  How  we  got  our  Bible,  p.  63. 


America,  and  What  It  Starids  For  27 

John  Wintlirop  must  have  wished  himself  at  home,  and 
then  instantly  checked  the  wish  and  turned  to  his  task. 

He  found  the  colony  in  a  sad  and  unexpected  con- 
dition. About  eighty  of  them  out  of  three  hundred 
had  died  the  winter  before,  and  many  of  those  alive 
were  weak  andsick,  all  the  corn  and  bread  among  them 
being  hardly  sufficient  to  feed  them.* 

Yet  Wmthrop  did  not  complain.  He  wrote  gaily, 
"My  dear  wife,  we  are  here  in  a  paradise.  Though 
we  have  not  beef  and  mutton,  etc.,  yet  God  be  praised 
w^e  want  them  not ;  our  Indian  corn  answers  for  all.  .  .  . 
We  here  enjoy  God  and  Jesus  Christ.  Is  not  this 
enough?  What  would  we  have  more?"t  This  is  the 
free  spirit  of  America. 

*  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  Justin  Winsor,  p.  113. 
flhid.,  p.  117. 


CHAPTER  VII 
AMERICA,  AND  WHAT   IT   STANDS  FOR 

2.     The  Union 

When  the  thirteen  original  colonies  united  they 
were  thirteen  independent  States  making  an  alliance, 
rather  than  one  nation.  Intentionally,  for  fear  of 
offending  someone's  locality,  the  Constitution  gave  the 
people  of  these  united  States  no  common  name.  They 
were  still  New  Englanders  or  Southerners,  men  of 
Massachusetts  or  Virginia,  united  to  help  each  other 
rather  than  welded  into  an  unbreakable  chain. 

"Liberty!"  was  the  cry  of  the  early  days  of  our  in- 
dependence. One  sentence  from  a  celebrated  speech 
of  Patrick  Henry's  still  rings  in  the  ears  of  every  school- 
boy: ''Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death."  It  was 
not  till  1830  that  there  was  heard  another  whose  words 
echo  as  loudly  as  the  words  of  Patrick  Henry.  Nobody 
troubles  himself  much  now  to  remember  who  Hayne 
was  or  what  kind  of  remarks  he  was  indulging  in  that 
led  Daniel  Webster  to  reply.  But  the  reply  clangs 
down  the  century:  ''Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for- 
ever, one  and  inseparable."  It  was  not  just  a  speech 
that  Webster  made:   it  was  a  discovery. 

Liberty  is  not  enough  to  live  by.  Liberty  is  a  lonely 
kind  of  solitaire.  We  are  not  happy  until  we  are  living 
together.  True,  union  interferes  with  our  freedom, 
but  it  is  far  preferable  to  be  together,  even  though — 
perhaps  just  because — we  must  learn  to  get  along  with 
one  another.  So  it  was  that  our  national  history  led  us 
more  and  more  to  ''liberty  and  union,  one  and  insepa- 


America,  mid  What  It  Stands  For  29 

rable,"  and  we  began  to  be  a  nation,  not  just  a  number 
of  scattered  States. 

Before  the  Civil  War,  John  C.  Calhoun  wTote:  "I 
never  use  the  word  'nation'  in  speaking  of  the  United 
States.  I  always  use  the  word  'Union'  or  'Confeder- 
acy,' .  .  .  England  is  a  nation,  Austria  is  a  nation, 
Russia  is  a  nation,  but  the  United  States  are  not  a 
nation." 

"The  United  States  are'' — how  queer  it  sounds! 
We  shall  never  again  say  anything  but  "The  United 
States  is!"  Borne  in  the  mouth  of  the  eagle  on  our 
sih'er  half-dollar  you  will  see  a  scroll  with  the  words 
"E  pluribus  unum" —  Out  of  many,  one.  Our  many 
States  are  now  one  nation. 

"Out  of  man3%  one."  That  is  the  same  idea  that 
St.  Paul  urged  upon  the  quarrelsome  Corinthians: 
"For  the  body  is  not  one  member,  but  many." 
"The  eye  cannot  say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of 
thee :  nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of 
you.  Nay,  much  more  those  members  of  the  body, 
which  seem  to  be  more  feeble,  are  necessary."  "And 
whether  one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer 
with  it ;  or  one  member  be  honored,  all  the  members 
rejoice  with  it."* 

Thus  in  our  national  life  we  need  each  other.  The 
old  and  the  young,  the  strong  and  the  feeble,  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  the  learned  and  the  unlearned,  descend- 
ants from  the  earhest  settlers  and  recently-arrived 
mimigrants,  people  north  and  south  and  east  and  west, 
— we  all  need  all  the  rest  in  order  to  have  here  in 
America  one  nation,  a  real  Union.  And  in  order  to 
perfect  that  Union  each  one  must  do  his  best  in  what 
he  can  best  do. 

In  the  summer  a  group  of  my  friends  camp  for  a  few 
weeks  on  an  island  in  one  of  the  smaller  Adirondack 

*1  Cor.  12:  14.  21-22,  26. 


30  Our  Part  in  the  World 

ponds.  When  we  arrive  tents  must  be  put  up,  beds 
made,  water  brought  from  the  lake,  dinner  cooked,  the 
table  set,  trunks  moved  into  place,  boats  varnished, 
dishes  washed,  mosquito-netting  sewed  for  each  bed. 
Instinctively  each  one  chooses  his  special  work. 
Helen  takes  to  cooking;  Hal  much  prefers  chopping 
wood  for  the  camp-fire;  Dorothy  has  always  a  needle 
ready  to  sew  rents;  Arthur  likes  best  to  row  to  the 
hotel  for  supplies;  Hugh  is  an  expert  fisherman; 
Bertha  undertakes  the  washing.  At  home,  where  we 
press  a  button  for  electric  light,  telephone  to  get  food 
or  order  an  automobile  to  go  down  town,  it  is  not  nearly 
so  clear  as  it  is  in  camp  that  the  ideal  cooperation  is 
that  of  many  folk  working  in  different  ways  for  one 
end.  City  life  conceals  our  debt  to  the  distant  farmer 
who  hoes  his  corn,  and  to  the  shoemaker  who  sticks 
to  his  last. 

We  need  people  for  a  great  many  different  reasons; 
sometimes  for  practical  help,  sometimes,  also,  for 
united  strength,  but  always  for  comradeship  and  sym- 
pathy. You  remember,  in  Edward  Everett  Hale's 
story  The  Man  without  a  Country,  how  wretched 
Nolan  was,  just  because  he  was  so  utterly  cut  off 
from  the  very  United  States  he  had  cursed.  It  would 
be  the  worst  punishment  conceivable,  Prof.  William 
James  once  said,  if  no  one  took  any  notice  of  us; 
if  people  "cut  us  dead,"  passed  us  as  if  we  were  a 
post  by  the  wayside.  We  should  soon  be  so  lonely  that 
we  would  prefer  any  other  penalty  no  matter  how  pain- 
ful. Our  deepest  need  of  one  another  is,  then,  the  need 
of  friendship,  of  loving  and  being  loved,  each  in  his 
special  way.  Have  you  ever  noticed  how  different, 
one  from  another,  were  the  friends  of  Jesus?  Peter 
must  have  annoyed  John  many  a  time  by  his  impetu- 
osity, just  as  Martha  was  provoked  by  Mary,  who  did 
not  seem  to  be  doing  her  share  of  the  work.     Yet  they 


America,  and  Ml\ai  It  Standi  For  31 

all  needed  Jesus,  and  he  needed  them  all,  needed  their 
very  differences. 

Differences  are  essential  in  any  great  union.  It 
is  most  fortunate  that  we  are  different  and  like  to  do 
different  things.  It  would  be  awkward  if  everybody 
wanted  to  play  the  violin  and  nobody  wanted  to  cook; 
or  if  everyone  wanted  to  make  speeches  and  no  one 
cared  to  listen.  There  are  great  differences  between 
men  and  women;  most  valuable  differences.  In  a 
true  family  a  man  and  a  woman,  loving  and  under- 
standing one  another,  can  help  each  other  the  more 
through  being  unlike. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  sense  in  trying  to  understand 
one  another,  and  none  in  trying  to  be  exactly  alike. 
Each  of  us  is  meant  to  be  unique  that  he  may  serve  God 
in  his  special  way,  a  way  that  no  one  else  can  follow  as 
well.  You  have  seen  maps  of  the  United  States  cut 
up  in  irregular  picture-puzzle  shapes,  and  yet  uniting 
to  make  a  complete  w^hole,  so  that  if  a  single  piece  is 
lost  there  is  an  ugly  gap.  Each  piece  belongs  some- 
where; it  is  awkwardly  out  of  place  elsewhere.  Each 
piece  though  in  itself  insignificant  is  necessary  to  make 
up  the  complete  whole.  Something  like  this  is  our 
part  in  the  w^orld.  Taken  by  ourselves,  we  are  insig- 
nificant; but  the  world  is  a  whole  in  God's  plan,  and 
when  we  find  our  place  we  are  united  with  all  who 
serve  because  we  achieve  something  that  is  needed. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
AMERICA,   AND   WHAT   IT   STANDS   FOR 

3.    Equality 

''All  men  are  created  equal."  Well,  that  certainly 
is  not  true!  One  man  is  born  blind;  another  has  a 
crippled  heart;  one  has  brilliant  musical  gifts;  an- 
other inherits  feeble-mindedness, — he  plods  along, 
barely  mastering  the  fourth  grade  at  school.  How  can 
we  call  men  free  who  inherit  mental  defects,  or  say 
that  men  are  equal  when  one  is  four  times  as  strong 
as  another? 

And  yet  the  saying  that  all  men  are  born  free  and 
equal  means  something  in  America.  It  means  that 
the  United  States  really  cares  that  every  man  shall 
have  a  chance  to  rise  to  his  own  height  of  power.  I 
was  speaking  to  a  young  lawyer  lately  about  a  humble- 
minded,  unassuming  woman  who,  by  dint  of  patient 
looking  through  a  microscope,  has  risen  to  be  the  most 
important  expert  about  malaria  in  the  world.  "That's 
bully!"  shouted  my  friend.  "That's  America!"  And 
so  it  is  and  must  be:  America,  who  glories  when 
her  rail-splitters  become  the  princes  of  men. 

America  stands  for  democracy  in  this  sense:  that 
every  man  shall  count  for  one  before  the  law;  that 
every  man  shall  have  a  fair  trial;  that  every  man  shall 
be  protected  in  life  and  property,  in  his  own  country 
and  when  he  lives  abroad.  Like  a  fair-minded  and 
generous  mother  America  covers  all  her  children,  poor 
or  rich,  wise  or  foolish,  with  the  mantle  of  her  faith 
and  her  protection.     Others  may  think  of  you  as  better 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  33 

or  worse,  valuable  or  worthless,  but  America  does  not 
estimate  or  separate  among  her  extraordinarily  varied 
flock.  "He  sendeth  His  rain  on  the  just  and  the  un- 
just." This  is  true  of  our  homeland,  and  in  its  love 
resides  something  of  the  protecting  tenderness  of  the 
love  of  God. 

Story  after  story  told  of  Abraham  Lincoln  brings  out 
his  desire  for  equaUty  of  opportunity  among  men. 
Indeed  his  desire  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  should  have  a  fair  chance  extended  even  to 
beetles.  Meeting  one  day  in  his  walk  a  beetle  who 
was  sprawling  on  its  back,  Lincoln  bent  his  six  feet 
five  inches  and  turned  it  upright,  saying:  "I  couldn't 
feel  quite  right  if  I  left  that  bug  on  its  back.  I  wanted 
it  to  have  an  equal  chance  with  all  the  other  bugs  in 
its  class." 

In  what  ways  can  Americans  be  equal?  Clearly 
equahty  can  never  mean  that  opportunities  exactly 
balance.  Even  a  carefully  planned  tennis  court  is  apt 
to  have  one  side  less  good  on  account  of  sun  or  wind. 
In  tennis  we  try  to  balance  advantages  by  giving 
.choice  of  ''serve"  to  compensate  choice  of  court,  but 
talents  do  not  balance.  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  roused  the 
country  by  proclaiming  that  the  only  equality  all  men 
can  and  should  have  is  "a  square  deal."  Even  this  is 
difficult  of  attainment.  It  is  impossible  to  square  the 
circle,  and  it  is  difficult  even  to  square  a  square,  that 
is,  to  make  it  perfectly  square  all  round.  But  America 
does  aim  to  make  opportunities  as  square  as  the  inade- 
quate tools  of  government  can  make  them.  One  famous 
amendment  to  our  Constitution  expresses  a  negative 
aspect  of  this  square  deal,— No  deprivations  on  account 
of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude. 
The  words  run  ofT  our  lips  smoothly  now,  but  they  were 
won  in  rough  and  dangerous  travail,  and  the  first  man 
who  inserted  them  into  a  legislative  bill  must  have  had 


34  Our  Part  in  the  World 

turned  on  him  a  volley  of  reproaches.  This  clause 
denoted  the  end  of  slavery. 

Perfect  equality  is  forever  impossible.  To  recognize 
this  leads  us  in  first-rate  sport  toward  the  higher  motto 
of  St.  Paul,  ''In  honor  preferring  one  another."  We 
are  continually  tempted  to  put  our  own  claims  first. 
It  seems  a  bit  more  pressing  and  important  that 
I  should  win  a  set  in  tennis  than  that  my  adversary 
should,  and  for  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  perfect 
fairness  must  become  generosity.  I  thought  my  ball 
was  just  within  the  hne,  you  thought  not.  Take  the 
play  over  again.  I  served  when  you  were  not  quite 
ready  and  you  missed.  I  will  serve  another  ball. 
You  thought  the  score  40-30  in  your  favor,  I  thought 
it  40-30  in  mine.     Let's  call  it  deuce. 

Christ  proclaims  a  standard  far  above  equality,  far 
beyond  even  the  standard  ''in  honor  preferring  one 
another."  "He  that  is  greatest  among  you  let  him 
be  your  servant."  Jesus  said  amazing  things,  but  few 
more  startling  than  this.  The  pomp  of  Rome  and  the 
pride  of  the  Pharisees  surrounded  the  Jews ;  Roman  and 
Pharisee  alike  held  himself  aloof  and  superior,  towering 
above  the  common  folk.  Jesus  undermined  their  whole 
structm-e,  for  he  beheld  a  greatness  loftier  than  theirs, — 
the  greatness  of  those  who  serve.  All  through  the 
centuries  since,  two  impulses  have  struggled  against 
one  another, — the  desire  of  the  dominant  church  to 
express  itseK  in  splendor  of  robes  and  land  and  luxury, 
and  the  deske  to  follow  him  who  chose  to  become  the 
servant  of  all. 

So  as  we  reach  greater  minds  we  climb  rung  by  rung 
a  ladder  of  ascending  standards.  First  and  lowest, 
selfish  equality, — we  see  it  among  children, — "If  you 
have  a  peach,  I  ought  to  have  one."  Then  fair- 
minded  equality,  "The  vote  shall  be  given  to  all  over 
twenty-one  who  can  read  and  write."     Beyond  that, 


Avierica,  and  What  It  Stands  For  35 

chivalry,  "Women  and  children  first;  the  best  seat 
for  the  man  tu-ed  by  hard  work."  "Noblesse  oblige." 
Then  far  beyond  even  chivalry,  humility  in  serving  God. 
He  who  has  the  most  to  give  in  talent,  tmie,  physi- 
cal or  mental  strength,  for  that  reason  owes  the  most, 
for,  in  the  beautiful  words  in  the  offertoiy,  "All 
things  come  of  Thee,  0  God,  and  of  Thine  own  have  we 
given  Thee." 


CHAPTER  IX 
AMERICA,  AND  WHAT   IT   STANDS  FOR 

4.    The  Least  of  These 

The  United  States  stands  for  humanity,  and  espe- 
cially for  generous  humanity  toward  women  and 
children.  When  the  steamship  Titanic  struck  an 
iceberg  in  mid-ocean  and  quickly  sank,  the  call 
''Women  first!"  to  the  lifeboats  found  ready  response 
from  almost  every  man  on  board.  It  was  the  women 
who  protested,  loving  husbands  or  sons  too  dearly  to 
leave  them  behind. 

Is  it  right,  this  ''Women  first"?  They  do  not  think 
so  in  China.  Here  is  the  Chinese  rule:  Save  first  the 
young  men,  then  the  young  women,  then  the  children, 
and,  last  of  all,  the  old  men  and  women.  "Save  first 
the  useful  and  the  strong,"  say  the  Chinese.  "Save 
first  the  weak  and  helpless"  is  the  creed  of  our  people. 
And  why  should  you  save  weaklings?  Why  not  toss 
them  aside,  as  the  farmer  at  harvest-time  tosses  away 
an  undeveloped  ear  of  corn?  I  believe  there  is  only  one 
answer:  "We  are  Christians."  Christ  saw  a  value 
in  people  that  differed  from  the  value  of  usefulness. 
To  him,  the  least  of  the  little  ones  was  as  precious 
as  the  mighty,  and  the  repentant  wrong-doer  more 
eagerly  to  be  helped  than  the  proudly  righteous. 

In  these  days  people  are  inclined  perhaps  more  than 
ever  before  to  do  things  on  a  large  scale,  to  provide 
help  for  Belgium,  to  reform  factories  or  hospitals,  to 
change  housing  conditions,  to  give  vocational  educa- 
tion to  everyone.     Necessary  and  good  in  their  way 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  37 

as  these  efforts  to  do  large-sized  deeds  may  be,  they 
tend  sometimes  to  make  us  forget  ''the  least  of  these." 
Jesus,  who  changed  the  known  and  unknown  world 
more  than  any  of  us  can  possibly  hope  to  do,  never 
forgot  the  individual, — the  leper  who  besought  him 
kneeling,  the  woman  who  had  given  up  all  hope  of 
being  cured  of  a  dragging  disease,  the  twelve-year-old 
daughter  of  Jairus,  the  little  children  whom  he  saw 
among  his  followers.  These  and  such  as  these  appealed 
to  him.  Jesus  thought  more  of  each  than  he  did  of  all. 
His  quick-seeing  mercy  beheld  the  smallest. 

Some  time  ago  I  heard  an  able  man  complain  that 
his  Sunday-school  teaching  was  both  difficult  and  dull. 
"After  all,"  he  said,  *4t's  very  little  use,  only  a  dozen 
boys  in  my  class  to  influence."  ''Only  a  dozen," 
echoed  his  friend,  a  distinguished  ■v\Titer.  "What  a 
wonderful  chance.  The  IVIaster  had  just  twelve  dis- 
ciples." "WTiat  would  the  world  be  without  these 
twelve  whom  Jesus  helped! 

There  is  another  way  in  which  the  minute  oppor- 
tunity becomes  important.  The  laws  of  perspective 
are  reversed  in  moral  life.  The  distant  looks  large, 
the  near  looks  small.  The  great  opportunities  seem  to 
lie  in  the  future  when  we  know  more,  when  we  are 
grown-up,  when  we  are  distinguished.  But  no  real 
service  can  ever  be  done  in  the  future.  It  always 
comes  now,  this  minute,  right  here.  The  tone  of 
voice  you  use  or  the  act  of  kindness  you  do  is  one  of 
these  least,  but  it  is  your  chance  to  serve. 

If  you  could  follow  the  incidents  that  led  to  great 
discoveries  and  great  reforms  you  would  be  startled 
to  find  in  what  small  ways  they  began.  People  don't 
sit  down  and  think  first  about  great  schemes;  they 
meet  an  experience  that  startles  or  puzzles,  hurts  or 
delights  them,  and  brood  over  it  till  it  germinates  into 
a  plan  or  grows   into    an   institution.     Mr.  William 


38  Our  Part  in  the  World 

George  started  the  George  Junior  Republic  because 
he  saw  some  boys  snatching  at  a  trunk  of  second-hand 
clothes  sent  to  them  as  a  gift,  and  perceived  that 
free  gifts  were  not  good  for  them. 

Another  instance  of  a  small  concrete  ^tarting-point 
from  which  a  great  movement  grew  is  shown  in  the 
history  of  the  Juvenile  Court.  In  Denver,  Colorado, 
some  years  ago,  an  Italian  boy  was  being  tried  for 
stealing.  It  was  clear  enough  that  he  had  committed 
the  theft,  and  Judge  Lindsey,  who  was  presiding,  had 
no  choice  but  to  give  the  boy  a  sentence.  But  at  the 
moment  he  rendered  the  verdict  he  heard  a  woman 
shriek,  and  turning  his  eyes  toward  the  place  whence 
the  sound  came  he  saw  in  the  back  of  the  room  an 
old  woman  tearing  her  hair  and  beating  her  head 
against  the  wall  in  agony.  That  very  evening  Judge 
Lindsey  went  to  the  dirty,  squalid  house  where  the 
woman  lived  and  talked  with  her  and  the  boy.  He 
found  that  the  boy  had  stolen  to  help  his  father  and 
mother  and  the  baby,  who  were  suffering  from  cold, 
and  that  it  would  only  do  him  harm  to  go  to  prison. 

''Well,"  said  Judge  Lindsey,  as  he  told  the  story 
afterward,  ''I  said  I'd  take  care  of  that  boy  myself, 
and  I  visited  him  and  his  mother  often,  and — well, 
we — ^his  mother  and  I — with  the  boy  helping — we 
saved  that  boy,  and  to-day  he  is  a  fine  fellow,  industri- 
ous, self-respecting,  and  a  friend  of  the  Court."* 

Another  day  three  boys  of  twelve  to  sixteen  years 
were  taken  to  court  for  burglary.  What  had  they 
stolen?  A  querulous  old  man  came  up  as  witness  to 
say  that  these  boys  were  forever  stealing  his  pigeons. 
At  last  he  had  caught  three  of  the  gang  and  he  wanted 
them  put  in  jail.     Then  a  curious  thing  happened, — 

*  Upbuilders,  Lincoln  Steffens,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1909,  p.  99. 
See  also  The  Beast,  by  Ben  B.  Lindsey  and  H.  J.  Higgins,  Doubleday, 
Page  &  Co.,  1910,  p.  82. 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  39 

Judge  Lindsey  remembered  that  he  himself  had  as 
a  boy  started  with  some  other  boys  to  rob  a  pigeon-loft. 
He  got  seared  and  let  the  other  boys  do  it  alone,  but 
he  was  on  the  very  edge  of  being  a  burglar.  And  when 
he  came  to  ask  the  old  man  where  his  pigeon-loft  was, 
Lindsey  found  that  here  was  the  very  man  he  had 
tried  to  burglarize  years  before.  This  made  Judge 
Lindsey  think!  Suppose  he  had  been  caught  and 
sent  to  prison — would  it  have  been  good  for  him? 
Lindsey  changed  his  mind.  Instead  of  sending  the 
boys  to  prison  he  invited  them  in  to  talk  with  him.  He 
found  out  that  the  boys  had  stolen  from  the  old  man 
because  they  wanted  to  get  back  some  pigeons  of  their 
own  which  had  joined  the  old  man's  flock.  The  Judge 
explained  that  even  then  it  wasn't  "square"  to  steal, 
for  the  coop  did  belong  to  the  old  man;  and  when  the 
Judge  explained  it  thus,  the  boys  understood.  Then 
he  said  that  he  wanted  the  whole  gang  to  stop  stealing; 
he  didn't  let  the  three  boys  tell  on  the  rest,  but  asked 
them  to  bring  the  others  in  to  talk  with  him.  They 
did  this,  and  they  all  of  them  made  a  bargain  with  the 
Judge,  not  only  to  stop  stealing  themselves,  but  to 
stop  others  from  doing  it  too,  if  possible.  And  they 
kept  their  bargain. 

It  was  hearing  cases  like  these  that  led  Judge 
Lindsey  to  found  the  Juvenile  Court.  He  knew  that 
to  make  boys  and  girls  afraid,  bitter  and  sullen  will 
make  them  lie  and  deceive;  to  treat  them  fairly  will 
encourage  them  to  tell  the  truth.  Lindsey's  great 
achievement  has  come  through  an  observant  and 
persistent  love  for  *Hhe  least  of  these." 


CHAPTER  X 

AMERICA,  AND  WHAT  IT   STANDS  FOR 

5.     Social  Service 

Service  is  a  word  that  in  our  twentieth  century 
is  coming  back  triumphant  into  honorable  usage. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  word  servant  meant 
something  servile,  degraded,  cringing.  I  beheve  it 
never  will  be  so  used  again.  Notice  how  often  four 
different  uses  of  the  word  service — military  service, 
civil  service,  public  service,  and  social  service — strike 
on  our  ears  nowadays.  The  military  and  naval  ser- 
vice undertakes  to  help  the  State  in  times  of  war  or 
danger;  the  civil  service  includes  all  other  government 
positions;  the  public  service  corporations  (gas,  elec- 
tricity, water-power,  railroads),  though  not  everywhere 
under  the  State,  supply  what  everyone  needs,  and 
so  are  servants  of  the  public;  social  service  helps 
those  who  are  sick,  poor,  helpless,  or  in  moral  diffi- 
culties. When  to  this  hst  we  add  the  teachers  who 
are  all  included  under  the  civil  service,  and  the  parents, 
who  certainly  are  doing  social  service  though  they 
don't  trouble  to  call  it  so,  there  are  few  grown  people 
of  much  value  in  the  United  States  who  are  not  in 
one  way  or  another  servants. 

So,  as  I  said,  the  words  service  and  duty  have 
become  so  familiar  and  useable  that  we  hardly  think 
of  their  original  meanings.  ''How  long  is  your  service 
at  the  City  Hospital?"  one  doctor  asks  another. 
"I  can't  get  out  this  evening,  I  am  on  duty,"  the 
trained  nurse  tells  her  friend.     The  soldier  speaks  with 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  41 

pride  of  being  "in  the  service."  Kipling  celebrating 
the  dauntless  Indian  mail-service  by  foot  to  the  Hills, 
thus  describes  the  runner  who  starts  up  the  footpath  as 
twilight  falls,  with  two  bags  of  the  Overland  mail  on 
his  back: 

"Is  the  torrent  in  spate?     He  must  ford  it  or  swim. 
Has  the  rain  wTecked  the  road?    He  must  cUnib  by  the  cliff. 
Docs  the  torrent  cry  'Halt'?    What  are  tempests  to  him? 
The  Service  admits  not  a  'but'  or  an  'if.' 
While  the  breath's  in  his  mouth,  he  must  hear  %\'ithout  fail. 
In  the  Name  of  the  Empress,  the  Overland  Mail." 

America,  it  seems  to  me,  stands  peculiarly  for  ser- 
vice. We  have  not  hesitated  to  call  our  highest  au- 
thorities servants  of  the  State.  The  motto  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  "Ich  dien"  (I  serve),  seems  to  us 
the  rightful  speech  of  princes.  The  Roman  Pope  is 
called  "The  servant  of  the  servants  of  men."  Our 
President  is  a  servant  of  the  people,  more  so  than  any 
other,  more,  not  less,  at  the  call  of  the  people,  because 
the  whole  nation  turns  to  him.  Lincoln,  even  m  the 
stress  of  the  Civil  War,  would  refuse  no  \isitor,  because 
he  felt  that  the  head  of  the  nation  must  be  always  at 
the  service  of  its  members. 

One  of  the  greatest  among  American  women,  Clara 
Barton,  made  herself  the  servant  of  every  community 
and  every  nation  in  trouble.  The  founding  of  the 
American  Red  Cross  is  largely  due  to  her  persistent 
efforts.  In  1870  France  declared  war  against  Prussia; 
within  three  days  Clara  Barton  was  asked  to  help; 
in  a  week  she  sailed,  for  she  remembered  only  too  vividly 
our  Civil  War.  She  had  nursed  at  Fredericksburg; 
she  had  seen  wounded  soldiers  star\'ing  and  frozen  at 
Petersburg,  or  broiling  under  the  July  sun  at  Gettys- 
burg. She  knew  the  agonies  of  war,  the  crowded 
prisons,   the  burned  houses  of  the  poor,  the  widows 


42  Our  Part  in  the  World 

struggling  alone  to  earn  their  children's  bread.  When 
then,  in  1870  Clara  Barton  saw  how  the  Red  Cross 
brought  comfort  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  she  said, 
''If  I  live  to  return  to  my  country,  I  will  try  to  make 
my  people  understand  the  value  of  the  Red  Cross." 

It  was  a  work  of  twelve  long,  discouraging  years, 
but  at  last  in  1882  the  United  States  joined  the  Red 
Cross  Association.  What  has  it  done  in  America? 
Look  at  the  list  below  and  see  a  few  of  the  opportunities 
to  serve  in  time  of  so-called  peace.  Every  year,  in 
our  widespread  country,  terrible  disasters  happen, — 
flood,  fire,  earthquake,  pestilence.  As  I  look  through 
the  thick  volume  of  Clara  Barton's  History  of  the  Red 
Cross,  I  read  of  these  disasters,  among  many  others  in 
which  that  organization  rendered  aid: 

1881  Michigan  Forest  Fu-es 

1882  Mississippi  Floods 

1883  Mississippi  Cyclone 

1884  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Floods 

1885  Texas  Famine 

1886  Charleston  Earthquake 

1888  IlKnois  Cyclone 

1889  Johnstown  Disaster 
1891-92     Russian  Famine 

Ten  years  of  work,  and  in  almost  every  one  a  great 
disaster  and  a  great  chance  to  help!  In  Michigan,  to 
take  the  first  instance,  the  forest  fires  raged  for  days, 
destroying  every  hving  thing  in  their  path.  As  one 
report  put  it,  ''So  sweeping  has  been  the  destruction 
that  there  is  not  food  enough  left  in  its  track  for  a 
rabbit  to  eat,  and,  indeed,  no  rabbit  to  eat  it,  if  there 
were.  If  we  did  not  hear  the  crackling  of  the  flames, 
our  skies  grew  murky  and  dark  and  our  atmosphere 
bitter  with  the  drifting  smoke  that  rolled  over  from 
the  blazing  fields  of  our  neighbors  of  Michigan,  whose 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  43 

living  thousands  fled  in  terror,  whose  dying  hundreds 
writhed  in  the  embers,  and  whose  dead  blackened  in  the 
ashes  of  their  hard-earned  homes."  Prompt  help  was 
given  through  the  Red  Cross.  "Instantly,"  the  re- 
port adds,  "we  felt  the  help  and  strength  of  your 
organization,  young  and  untried  as  it  was.  We  were 
grateful  that  in  this  first  ordeal  your  sympathetic  Presi- 
dent was  with  us.  We  were  deeply  grateful  for  your 
prompt  call  to  action,  given  through  her,  which  rallied 
us  to  our  work.  Our  relief  rooms  were  secured,  and 
our  white  banner  with  its  bright  scarlet  cross,  which 
has  never  been  furled  since  that  hour,  was  thrown  to 
the  breeze,  telling  to  every  looker-on  what  we  were 
there  to  do,  and  pointing  to  every  generous  heart  an 
outlet  for  its  sympathy.  We  had  not  mistaken  the 
spirit  of  our  people;  our  scarce-opened  doorway  was 
filled  with  men,  vv-omen,  and  children  bearing  their 
gifts  of  pity  and  love.  Tables  and  shelves  were  piled; 
our  working  committee  of  ladies  took  every  article 
under  inspection;  their  faithful  hands  made  all  gar- 
ments whole  and  strong;  lastly,  each  article  received 
the  stamp  of  the  Red  Cross,  and  all  were  carefully  and 
quickly  consigned  to  the  firm  packing  cases  awaiting 
them.  Eight  large  boxes  were  shipped  at  first,  others 
followed  directly,  and  so  we  continued  until  notified 
by  the  Relief  Committee  of  IMichigan  that  no  more 
were  needed."  * 

In  1917,  when  our  nation  was  at  war,  the  whole 
country  poured  its  funds  by  millions  into  the  Red 
Cross.  It  was  an  expression  of  that  sometimes  hidden, 
deep  desire  to  serve,  which  is  a  native  plant  in  the 
United  States. 

I  beheve  that  each  true  American  at  heart  recog- 
nizes as  his  own  the  ideal  of  Christ:  ''He  that  is  great- 

*  The  Red  Cross,  Clara  Barton,  American  Historical  Press,  1899,  pp. 
108-109. 


44  Our  Part  in  the  World 

est  among  you  shall  be  your  servant."  All  devoted 
service  to  men  is  but  one  way  of  serving  God,  and  there 
' is  no  higher  title  of  office  than  that  of  ''Servant  of  the 
Lord."  "Title  of  office"  I  said  intentionally.  There 
is  a  far  more  tender  name — ' '  Friends  of  God. ' '  ' '  Hence- 
forth I  call  you  not  servants;  for  the  servant  knoweth 
not  what  his  lord  doeth;  but  I  have  called  you  friends; 
for  all  things  that  I  have  heard  of  my  Father  I  have 
made  known  unto  you"  (John  15:  15). 


CHAPTER   XI 

AMERICA,   AND  WHAT   IT  STANDS  FOR 

G.     Honor  and  Chivalry 

Soon  after  the  invasion  of  Belgium  in  August,  1914, 
I  saw  a  cartoon  representing  King  Albert  of  Belgium 
and  the  German  Kaiser.  Sneeringly  the  Emperor 
pointed  out  the  diminished  territory  held  by  the  King, 
and  vociferated,  "All  is  lost."  ''True,"  answered 
Iving  Albert;   "all  is  lost  except  my  soul." 

I  suppose  honor  is  just  what  we  mean  by  the  soul  of 
a  man,  and  because  honor  is  his  centre  of  command  it 
is  like  a  magnet  drawing  into  its  service  all  other 
qualities.  An  honorable  man  must  have  courage, — 
quantities  of  it  fresh  for  service  at  all  times;  he  must 
be  fair  and  square,  he  must  be  chivalrous  to  women, 
trutliful  beyond  question,  generous,  loyal.  And  there 
come  times,  such  as  came  to  the  young  King  of  Bel- 
gium, when  to  keep  honor  one  must  part  with  every- 
thing else  one  holds  dear.  Then  a  king  must  go  to 
exile  or  to  death,  must  ache  to  see  his  cities,  cathedrals 
and  libraries  in  ruins,  and  women  and  babies  fleeing 
in  terror  from  fire  and  shell.  Only  the  spirit  of  the 
martyrs  can  hold  a  man  unrepentant  that  he  has  held 
to  his  pledge,  when  in  so  doing  he  has  devastated  his 
country. 

Such  faitlifulness  increases  the  sum  of  honor  in  the 
world.  The  Belgians  standing  firm  to  honor  and  troth 
against  an  overwhelming  force  have  died  for  us  as  well 
as  for  their  nation.  Seeing  such  standards  of  loyalty 
to  their  word,  all  the  standards  of  the  world  wave  in 


46  Our  Part  in  the  World 

steadier  strength.  ''For  the  sake  of  her  own  honor  the 
United  States  must  never  take  an  inch  of  Mexican 
, soil,"  President  Wilson  told  us.  ''But  what  is  honor 
anyway?"  asked  one  of  the  audience.  "What  does 
it  amount  to?  It's  not  success,  or  prosperity,  or  health. 
What  good  does  it  do  to  the  United  States?"  Let  us 
answer,  in  the  words  of  liing  Albert,  no  good  except 
that  good  which  is  above  all  good,  the  finding  of  our 
soul. 

Each  generation  has  to  meet  national  issues  that 
touch  its  honor.  The  generation  above  mine  learned 
to  know  that  slavery  was  dishonorable;  my  generation 
is  learning  that  we  must  protect  liberty  and  honor  cove- 
nant even  with  our  lives.  What  will  be  the  great- 
est question  of  honor  that  will  meet  your  generation? 
Can  you  prophesy? 

One  field  of  honor  is  the  tournament  field  of  chivalry. 
Since  the  beginning  of  our  history  it  has  been  true 
(with  a  few  shameful  exceptions)  that  America  has 
stood  for  chivalry,  for  special  help  to  the  weak,  to  the 
unfortunate,  and  to  women.  Lincoln's  chivalry  re- 
volted at  the  sight  of  slavery.  When  he  was  a  young 
man  he  built  a  raft  and  towed  a  load  of  produce  down 
the  Mississippi  River  to  sell  it  in  New  Orleans  for  his 
employer.  New  Orleans  at  that  time  contained  a 
flourishing  slave-market,  and  after  Lincoln  had  sold 
his  goods  he  wandered  off  with  another  boatman  to 
see  it.  I  suppose  they  went  for  curiosity,  as  any  of 
us  might  do,  but  what  they  saw  roused  in  Lincoln  far 
more  than  curiosity.  At  the  slave-market,  in  long  rows, 
stood  black  men,  women,  and  children,  standing 
against  the  wall  to  be  stared  at.  In  front  of  them  the 
auctioneer  shouted  out  their  good  points,  as  he  would 
praise  a  horse  or  a  cow.  And  then  came  the  tragic 
moment.  Some  Southern  planter  would  decide  to 
buy  a  wife  without  her  husband,  or  a  child  without  its 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  47 

mother.  Families  were  separated  forever.  Lincoln's 
blood  boiled,  and  with  a  choking  voice  he  turned  to  his 
companion  and  muttered,  ''If  I  ever  get  a  chance  to 
hit  that  thing,  I  will  hit  it  hard,  by  the  Eternal  God." 

In  the  North,  not  long  after,  the  wife  of  a  country- 
minister  received  a  letter  from  her  sister.  "If  I  had 
your  gift  for  -^ATiting,  I  would  strike  a  blow  at  slavery," 
the  latter  wrote.  "With  God's  help,  I  will,"  she  an- 
swered,— it  was  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, — and  both  she 
and  Lincoln  kept  their  word.  They  were  then  insig- 
nificant, poor,  uninfluential ;  but  they  saw  and  did  not 
forget  a  great  wrong.  The  powerful  of  the  nation  were 
against  them.  That  did  not  matter.  They  remem- 
bered, they  acted, — and  slavery  fell.  If  any  of  you 
have  a  chance  to  strike  at  slavery  in  whatever  form  it 
may  take, — the  rule  of  the  boss,  the  crushing  of 
Armenians,  the  overworking  of  children,  the  subjuga- 
tion of  little  nations,  the  degradation  of  women, — ^hit 
it  a  hard  blow  and  God  will  be  with  you. 

Whom  shall  we  honor  most?  We  often  appear  to 
honor  most  people  whose  lives  are  successful  and 
sho\\y.  The  man  who  has  made  his  pile  of  money 
is  frequently  the  most  honored  man  in  a  small  town. 
But  it  is  treacherous  to  honor  him  till  we  know  how  he 
has  made,  and  how  he  spends,  his  wealth.  We  honor 
a  general  decorated  with  medals  and  insignia  of  rank. 
How  has  he  acquired  his  rank?  By  courage,  by  disci- 
pline, and  by  hours  of  wTacking  work,  or  by  favoritism? 
We  honor  the  captain  of  a  college  football  team  or  the 
crack  pitcher  of  the  Red  Sox.  There  is  in  them  much 
to  honor.  They  have  shown  persistence,  control, 
energy,  self-denial.  Honor  to  whom  honor  is  due. 
But  you  will  notice  that  Jesus  seemed  to  disregard  our 
conomon  standards  of  honor.  He  was  very  poor, 
but  he  did  not  bow  down  before  the  rich  young  man. 
Instead,  he  was  sorry  for  him,  because  it  was  hard  for 


48  Our  Part  in  the  World 

him  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Jesus  spoke 
with  pecuhar  honor  of  one  poor  woman.  His  quick 
eyes  noted  her  as  she  put  her  two  mites  into  the  treas- 
ury of  the  synagogue,  and  he  saw  that  she  had  given 
more  than  all  the  rest. 

Soldiers  of  the  great  Roman  Empire  marched  by 
Jesus  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  their  helmets  blazing 
under  the  tropic  sun,  but  he  hardly  seems  to  have 
noticed  them.  He  looked  elsewhere  and  saw  children. 
When  his  disciples  asked  who  should  be  greatest  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  he  took  a  child  and  set  him 
in  the  midst  of  them.  To  Jesus  the  child  stood  for 
purity,  openness,  truthfulness.  The  most  honorable 
men  are,  Jesus  knew,  the  most  modest,  the  most  child- 
like, the  purest  in  heart.  He  knew  that  the  pure  in 
heart  shall  see  God,  and  that  those  who  see  God  are 
the  most  to  be  honored. 


chapter  xii 
a:merica,  and  what  it  stands  for 

-7.    Education 

''What  is  the  use  of  going  to  school?  Why  don't 
we  hve  out  in  the  country  in  tents  with  a  pony  to  ride, 
plant  our  farms,  and  make  clothes  out  of  skins?" 
asked  a  boy  of  fourteen.  ''I  don't  see  any  sense  in 
learning  mathematics  and  Latin.  What  good  are  they, 
anyway?" 

It  is,  when  you  think  of  it,  an  extraordinary  law  that 
forces  parents  in  many  States  to  send  their  children  to 
school  from  the  time  they  are  seven — or  in  some  States 
five — years  of  age  until  they  are  fourteen  or  even  older. 
The  parents  often  want  the  children  to  help  at  home; 
they  may  need  the  oldest  girl  to  help  with  the  washing 
or  take  care  of  the  baby;  but  the  State  pays  no  atten- 
tion to  these  wishes.  Nothing  but  the  child's  illness  or 
''inability  to  profit  by  the  instruction  given"  is  a 
sufficient  reason  to  keep  him  at  home.  Uncle  Sam 
must  think  education  very  significant  if  he  is  ready  not 
only  to  insist  that  all  the  children  shall  go,  but  also 
that  all  the  tax-payers,  whether  or  not  they  have  any 
children,  shall  contribute  money  to  support  the  public 
schools. 

If  children  do  not  want  an  education  why  should  it 
be  forced  upon  them? 

The  answer  to  such  a  question  comes  best  not  from 
the  people  who  have  had  education  heaped  upon  them, 
but  from  those  who  have  had  to  dig  for  it.  Let  us 
take  two  cases.     Booker  Washington  in  Up  from  Slav- 


60  Our  Part  in  the  World 

ery  tells  of  his  early  childhood.  He  was  born  in  Vir- 
ginia some  time  during  the  year  1858,  but  no  one  kept 
■any  record  of  which  day  was  his  birthday.  The  house 
in  which  he  was  born  was  a  log  cabin  fourteen  by  six- 
teen feet  square.  There  were  no  windows.  Light 
came  in  through  a  cut  in  the  wall.  It  was  cold  enough 
in  winter,  with  a  loose  door  on  rickety  hinges,  and  an 
open  hole  of  eight  inches  for  the  cat  to  get  out  and  in  as 
she  pleased.  The  floor  was  of  earth,  and  in  the  centre 
was  a  square  pit  for  storing  sweet  potatoes.  The  chil- 
dren slept  on  a  heap  of  dirty  rags.  They  never  sat 
down  together  to  a  meal,  but  ate  whatever  scraps 
there  happened  to  be.  They  wore  wooden  shoes,  and 
shirts  of  flax  that  scratched  like  a  burr.  There  was  no 
time  for  play;  everyday  they  swept  out  yards  or  took 
corn  to  the  mill  to  be  ground. 

As  soon  as  he  was  thought  useful  enough,  Booker 
was  made  to  work  in  a  salt  mine.  He  often  began  work 
at  four  in  the  morning,  and  of  course  worked  all  day. 
Once  he  saw  a  barrel  with  xviii  marked  on  it  and  he 
copied  the  number.  Then  he  persuaded  his  mother  to 
get  him  a  spelling-book  and  taught  himself  the  alphabet. 
One  night  there  came  to  the  neighborhood  a  young  col- 
ored man  who  called  himself  a  teacher.  The  whole 
community  gathered  to  admire  his  remarkable  ability 
as  he  read  the  newspaper.  A  school  was  started. 
Even  old  men  and  women  came  because  they  wanted 
to  learn  to  read  the  Bible.  As  for  Booker,  he  worked 
all  day,  but  he  went  to  school  in  the  evening,  though 
he  often  had  to  walk  several  miles  to  reach  it. 

One  day  he  heard  two  miners  talking  about  a  great 
school,  and  he  crept  up  close,  to  hear  better.  ''At 
Hampton,"  they  said,  ''you  could  pay  for  your  board 
by  work,  and  learn  at  the  same  time."  Booker  re- 
solved at  once  to  go.  True,  it  was  five  hundred  miles 
away,  but  he  could  walk  and  earn  as  he  went.     How 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  51 

he  got  there  and  proved  his  mettle  you  will  want  to 
read  for  yourself  in  Up  from  Slavery  *  for  that  boy  in 
the  salt  mine  became  the  most  distinguished  and  val- 
ued man  of  his  race. 

Another  boy,  of  whose  passion  for  education  we  know, 
was  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  as  hungry  for  reading 
as  most  of  us  are  for  dinner.  He  told  a  friend  once 
that  he  had  read  through  every  book  he  heard  of  within 
a  circuit  of  fifty  miles,  and  from  each  book  he  copied 
long  extracts  with  his  turkey-buzzard  pen  and  brier- 
root  ink.f  Could  anyone  now  compete  with  this 
record? 

Lincoln  went  deeper  than  just  reading  books.  His 
passion  was  to  understand.  "I  never  went  to  school 
more  than  six  months  in  my  life,"  he  said,  ''but  I  can 
say  this:  that  among  my  earliest  recollections  I  re- 
member how,  when  a  mere  child,  I  used  to  get  irri- 
tated when  anybody  talked  to  me  in  a  way  I  could 
not  understand.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  got  angry  at 
anything  else  in  my  life;  but  that  always  disturbed 
my  temper,  and  has  ever  since.  I  can  remember 
going  to  my  little  bedroom,  after  hearing  the  neigh- 
bors talk  of  an  evening  with  my  father,  and  spending 
no  small  part  of  the  night  walking  up  and  down  and 
trying  to  make  out  what  was  the  exact  meaning  of 
some  of  their,  to  me,  dark  sayings. 

''I  could  not  sleep,  although  I  tried  to,  when  I  got 
on  such  a  hunt  for  an  idea,  until  I  had  caught  it  and 
w^hen  I  thought  I  had  got  it,  I  was  not  satisfied  until 
I  repeated  it  over  and  over,  until  I  had  it  in  language 
plain  enough,  as  I  thought,  for  any  boy  I  knew  to 
comprehend.  This  was  a  kind  of  passion  with  me,  and 
it  has  stuck  by  me;  for  I  am  never  easy  now,  when  I 
am  handling  a  thought,  till  I  have  bounded  it  north 

*  Up  from  Slavery,  Booker  T.  Washington. 

t  The  Life  of  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  McClure,  1902,  Vol.  I,  p.  30. 


52  Our  Part  in  the  World 

and  bounded  it  south,  and  bounded  it  east  and  bounded 
it  west."  * 

'  And  now  we  can  answer  the  question  why  an  edu- 
cated person  is  better  off  than  an  uneducated  one. 
He  is  better  off  in  three  important  ways.  The  first 
is  suggested  by  Lincoln. 

1.  He  can  understand  the  world  better.  Suppose  I 
took  you  into  a  vast  hall  in  which  lay  an  uncounted 
number  of  different  instruments, — violins,  golf-sticks, 
wireless  apparatus,  electric  cooking-stoves,  planes, 
paint-boxes,  skates,  skis,  moving-picture  films.  What 
you  would  get  from  these  treasures  would  depend 
entirely  on  what  skill  you  had  in  using  them.  From 
the  violin  Kreisler  draws  magic;  I  draw  nothing  but 
squeaks.  The  tennis  racket  will  send  his  ball  just 
where  McLoughlin  wants  it  to  go;  but  my  tennis  racket 
seems  to  misunderstand  the  situation:  the  ball  goes 
to  the  wrong  place.  The  whole  world  is,  like  this  hall, 
full  of  treasures.  They  are  ours  if  we  can  use  them. 
If  we  cannot,  they  cumber  the  ground.  "I  can't 
imagine  what  that  is.  It  is  Greek  to  me,"  is  a  common 
phrase.  But  Greek  to  someone  else  means  stories  of 
adventure,  friendship  with  great  men  like  Socrates  and 
Plato,  dramas  to  act,  the  New  Testament  in  the  original 
to  read.  Education  means  new  eyes  and  ears.  We 
can  hear  the  strange  sounds  indeed,  but  we  are  practi- 
cally deaf  to  Hebrew  or  Japanese.  The  botanist  and 
the  ornithologist  have  no  stronger  sight  than  the  rest 
of  us,  but  we  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  blind 
compared  to  them  in  the  power  of  seeing  new  flowers 
or  catching  glimpses  of  hidden  birds.  This  is  the  first 
great  value  of  education.  It  puts  within  our  reach 
the  treasures  of  the  entire  world.  Knowledge  is  a  hook 
to  catch  passing  experience. 

2.  The  uneducated  person  is  more  likely  to  he  deceived. 

♦  The  Life  of  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  McCIure,  1902,  Vol.  I,  p.  44. 


America,  and  What  It  Stands  For  53 

He  is  like  a  blind  person  in  so  far  as  he  is  dependent 
on  others  for  what  books  or  letters  say.  The  ignorant 
person  unintentionally  deceives  himself  as  well  as 
others.  He  has  studied  no  science  and  is  easily  fooled 
by  such  superstitions  as  that  the  windows  should  be 
closed  if  one  of  his  children  has  tuberculosis.  As  in 
this  case,  the  tragedy  often  is  that  he  does  kindly  and 
ignorantly  exactly  the  WTong  tiling  for  those  he  most 
wants  to  help. 

3.  Education  means  also  the  power  to  take  our  part  in 
the  world.  Much  schooling  that  seems  dull  is  nothing 
but  the  acquisition  of  tools  so  that  we  can  work. 
Arithmetic,  spelling,  wTiting,  grammar,  foreign  verbs, 
are  like  axes,  hammers,  and  spades.  They  are  tools 
of  a  trade.  Without  them  we  are  as  awkw^ard  and  help- 
less as  if  we  had  to  cut  dow^n  a  tree  with  our  hands. 
The  uneducated  person  is  shut  out  from  many  of  the 
most  interesting  employments.  Engineering  requires 
mathematics;  consular  service  requires  a  mastery  of 
languages;  physicians  need  a  knowledge  of  chemistry; 
trained  nurses  have  to  study  anatomy  and  physiology. 
Or  even  if  an  uneducated  person  gets  on  and  makes 
money,  he  may  be  unfitted  to  take  his  part  in  the  w^orld's 
service.  He  lacks  history  which  would  help  him  to  un- 
derstand the  present  and  future  by  knowing  the  past. 
Late  in  life  he  cannot  easily  learn  the  languages  that 
w^ould  help  him  or  by  which  he  could  help  other  races. 

In  a  word,  then,  education  enlarges  one's  outlook, 
one's  soul.     That  is  its  supreme  reward. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
INTERNATIONAL  TIES 

"All  those  European  quarrels  are  no  affair  of  ours," 
I  have  sometimes  heard  people  say.  Could  anything 
be  more  absurd!  Where  did  we  all  come  from?  Who 
gave  us  our  ancestry,  our  literature,  our  art,  our  music, 
our  Protestant  faith,  our  ideals  of  freedom?  A  man 
cannot  honorably  forget  the  giver  of  inestimable  gifts. 
Socrates,  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  Hans  Andersen, 
Burns,  Beethoven,  Pasteur,  Selma  Lagerlof,  Cer- 
vantes, Chopin,  Tolstoi,  Carmen  Sylva — these  are  a 
few  of  the  many  leaders,  each  from  a  different  nation 
in  Europe,  without  whom  we  were  spindling  little  up- 
starts. There  are  people  in  Asia  and  Africa  and  even 
in  parts  of  Europe  who  have  lived  isolated  for  cen- 
turies, but  we  Americans  are  bound  by  unbreakable 
ties  to  an  ancestry  in  many  lands. 

I  suppose  it  is  inevitable  that  these  many  dear  ties 
will  make  problems  for  us,  just  as  a  large  family  brings 
problems;  but  let  us  take  our  good  fortune,  problems 
included. 

When  the  European  war  broke  out  in  1914  we  in 
America  held  our  breath.  Half  stunned  by  the  shock- 
ing crime,  we  did  not  as  a  nation  protest  against  the 
invasion  of  Belgium.  But  when  we  could  pull  our- 
selves together  we  wanted  to  help  the  suffering,  for 
Americans  are  sensitive  to  human  need.  Let  me  tell 
you  of  two  young  Americans  who  did  help.  One, 
Victor  Chapman,  was  a  lad  born  of  an  Italian  mother, 
fiery  and  God-loving,  and  of  an  American  father 
whose  passionate  impulse  to  bear  the  sins  committed 


International  Ties  55 

by  any  American  comes  down  from  a  great  ancestor, 
John  Jay.  Victor  Chapman,  who  had  the  fearlessness 
of  chivalry,  promptly  joined  the  Foreign  Legion  and 
later  was  transferred  to  the  little  corps  of  American 
flyers  who  had  the  privilege  of  serving  France.  One 
day  in  July,  1916,  Victor  soared  up  into  the  air,  tak- 
ing with  him  in  his  airplane  some  oranges  for  a  friend 
sick  in  a  hospital.  He  risked  being  shot  by  the  Ger- 
mans, that  he  might  bring  pleasure  to  a  friend.  As 
he  flew  above  the  trenches  and  up  into  clear  space 
he  saw  three  American  airplanes  attacked  and  en- 
dangered by  four  German  Tauben.  Instantly  he 
soared  up  toward  them,  and,  darting  into  the  fray,  put 
two  German  airplanes  out  of  commission.  Quickly 
the  other  Germans  turned  on  him  and  he  fell,  dying — 
an  Italian- American  in  the  service  of  France. 

France  in  the  midst  of  her  anguish  does  not  forget 
the  American  dead.  Before  the  statue  of  Washington 
in  Paris  a  ser\dce  was  held  and  tributes  of  glowing 
flowers,  given  by  a  nation  never  too  poor  to  abandon 
generosity,  commemorated  the  Americans  who  had 
died  for  France.  Dying  they  live  eternally.  M.  Bri- 
and.  Prime  Minister  of  France,  spoke  of  Victor  Chap- 
man as  a  ''living  symbol  of  American  idealism."* 

About  the  time  that  Victor  made  his  choice,  there 
was  an  American  girl  over  in  France  studying  art. 
She  offered  her  services  at  once,  and  was  sent  to  a  small 
French  hospital  on  the  Riviera.  Later  she  heard  that 
an  examination  was  to  be  held  for  a  nurse's  diploma 
in  the  French  Red  Cross.  She  studied  literally  night 
and  day  to  get  this  diploma;  was  examined  by  nine 
doctors,  and  passed  with  credit.  Then  she  was  sent 
to  the  French  front,  not  as  a  civilian  nurse,  but  with 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  in  an  army  hospital.  And 
there  began  her  active  service.     ''I  am  a  soldier  now," 

*  Victor  Chapman's  Letters  from  France,  Macmillan. 


56  Our  Part  in  the  World 

she  writes.  "We  are  just  behind  the  firing  Hne  and 
only  get  desperate  cases.  I  work  always  more  than 
fourteen  hours  a  day."  In  a  single  day  she  had  to 
help  in  thirty- three  operations;  the  average  was 
twenty-five.  She  was  often  ill  or  tired  before  the  war, 
but  now  she  was  well — ''Too  busy  to  remember  my- 
self, present  or  future,"*  is  the  way  she  puts  it. 

''I  think  you  would  sicken  with  fright  if  you  could 
see  the  operations  that  a  poor  nurse  is  called  on  to 
perform,"  she  writes, — "the  putting  in  of  drains,  the 
washing  of  wounds  so  huge  and  ghastly  as  to  make  one 
marvel  at  the  endurance  that  is  man's,  the  digging 
about  for  bits  of  shrapnel.  I  assure  you  the  word 
'responsibility'  takes  a  special  meaning  here." 

One  day  a  man  whose  leg  had  been  terribly  wounded 
was  told  by  the  surgeon  that  it  must  be  cut  off.  In 
the  sick  man's  face  was  an  agony  Mademoiselle  Miss 
could  not  endure.  She  begged  for  twenty-four  hours' 
delay,  which  the  surgeon  granted.  All  that  time  she 
bathed  the  leg  in  boric  acid  water  and  iodine.  Next 
day  the  doctor,  as  he  visited  the  patient,  said,  "In- 
deed, this  is  curious, — the  leg  is  no  worse":  and  he 
gave  her  twenty-four  hours  more.  So  day  by  day 
it  went,  till  after  four  days  he  could  say  to  the  soldier: 
"My  old  man,  you  are  in  luck.  Mademoiselle  has  suc- 
ceeded. You  will  keep  your  leg."  A  month  later 
No.  19  left  with  his  leg  for  a  sunnier  clime! 

It  is  one  of  the  deep  and  mysterious  things  in  the 
adventures  of  Mademoiselle  Miss  that  the  more  she 
loved  and  served  France,  the  more  she  loved  America. 
Partly  it  was  that  being  actively  at  work  she  was  more 
alive  all  over,  and  so  more  brimful  of  love;  partly  that 
seeing  a  nation  under  the  consecration  of  self-sacrifice, 
she  suddenly  saw  what  her  nation  might  become. 

"All  at  once  America  has  become  Cathay  to  me — 

*  Mademoiselle  Miss,  Butterfield,  Boston,  p,  33, 


International  Ties  57 

a  far  more  luminous  discovery  than  Columbus  ever 
dreamed  of — a  Promised  Land  flowing  with  ether  and 
cotton  and  all  sorts  of  surgical  delights.  All  of  a 
sudden  I  find  myself  growing  patriotic,  to  a  degree 
I  ne\'er  knew  in  former  days.  It's  quite  true  that 
whenever  I  turn  my  eyes  toward  the  end  of  my  ward, 
where  hangs  the  bright  trophj^  (the  flags  of  the  Allies), 
the  little  American  banner  below  with  the  light  shin- 
ing through  gives  me  a  wee  thrill  that  is  quite  peculiar, 
and  makes  me  think  that  some  day  I  may  be  a  better 
American."  * 

Year  by  year  international  ties  increase.  All  over 
the  known  world  men,  women,  and  children  are 
united,  for  they  think  about  the  same  things  in  differ- 
ent ways.  As  they  make  new  inventions,  plan  re- 
forms, start  societies,  they  turn  with  added  under- 
standing to  one  another.  For  example,  the  experiences 
in  many  lands  of  Boy  Scouts  unite  them  all.  Very 
lately  General  Baden-Powell,  the  founder  of  Boy 
Scouts  in  England,  made  a  tour  of  the  w^orld  from 
South  Africa  and  Japan  to  the  United  States.  Every- 
where he  was  received  by  the  shouts  of  Boy  Scouts. 
Here  are  some  of  the  deeds  he  found  them  doing.  In 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama  Boy  Scouts  were  helping  to 
drive  out  yellow  fever  and  malaria  by  squirting  oil  on 
stagnant  pools  and  drains.  In  Chicago  five  thousand 
Boy  Scouts  gave  exhibitions  of  first  aid,  of  saving  the 
drowning,  and  of  wdreless  telegraphy.  They  competed 
to  see  who  could  light  a  fire  quickest  without  matches. 
Do  you  know  how  they  do  it?  They  twirl  a  pointed 
stick  on  a  piece  of  flat  cedar  wood,  till  the  stick  gets 
hot  and  works  tlirough  the  board,  dropping  a  little 
pile  of  ashes;  dry  bits  of  cotton  are  laid  on  these 
ashes  and  blown  on  till  the  cotton  catches  fire.  It  is 
a  good  deal  easier  to  talk  about  than  to  do. 

*  Mademoiselle  Miaa,  p.  59. 


58  Our  Part  in  the  World 

In  the  United  States  General  Baden-Powell  saw  also 
bands  of  blind  Scouts,  with  sometimes  a  troop  half  of 
blind  boys  and  half  of  seeing,  to  lead  the  others.  From 
much  Scout  work  the  blind  are  cut  off;  but  they  can 
compete  in  a  tug-of-war,  make  raised  maps,  play  the 
bugle  and  gain  honors  in  sewing.  There  are  some 
things  they  can  do  better  than  the  seeing!  They 
have  exceptional  skill  in  listening  for  sounds;  for  hear- 
ing, smell  and  touch  are  increased  by  use,  as  Helen 
Keller's  book  The  World  I  Live  In  shows  us.* 

In  the  Philippines,  Baden-Powell  found  that  during 
a  recent  fii'e  in  Manila,  which  burnt  several  thousand 
houses,  two  Boy  Scouts  had  worked  for  hours  getting 
the  frightened  people  to  safety,  rescuing  their  posses- 
sions, and  obeying  the  directions  of  the  firemen.  An 
even  more  interesting  bit  of  work  was  done  in  Australia. 
A  baby  was  taken  violently  ill  with  convulsions  on 
a  train.  No  doctor  was  at  hand.  A  trained  Boy 
Scout  ran  to  the  engine,  got  from  the  engineer  a  bucket 
of  hot  water,  tested  its  heat,  plunged  the  baby  in  and 
rubbed  it  till  it  recovered. 

Another  Boy  Scout  in  Tasmania  was  decorated  for 
saving  a  man  from  drowning.  With  all  his  clothes  on, 
and  with  the  frightened  man  dragging  him  under,  the 
Scout  had  a  difficult  task,  but  he  got  himself  and  the 
man  safely  ashore.  A  girl  in  South  Africa  did  equally 
good  work.  Seeing  a  lady  beyond  her  depth  and  in 
danger  of  drowning,  this  girl,  Carrie  Cross,  plunged  in, 
and,  though  not  a  good  smmmer,  kept  her  head  and 
dragged  the  woman  ashore. 

From  Sweden  comes  an  interesting  story.  The  wife 
and  two  children  of  a  workman  in  Gottenburg  were 
suddenly  attacked  with  diphtheria,  and  were  taken  to 
a  hospital.  The  man  was  away  at  the  factory  all  day 
and  could  pay  no  one  for  keeping  the  house  and  caring 
for  the  third  child.     When  he  came  home  on  the  sec- 

*  The  Century  Company. 


International  Ties  59 

ond  day  he  found  the  house  cleaned  and  in  order,  with 
one  Scout  playing  with  his  child,  and  another  doing 
the  housework.  For  two  weeks  these  boys — sons,  one 
of  a  rich  and  one  of  a  poor  man — continued  their  good 
work.  Then  the  mother  was  well  enough  to  take  it 
up. 

Baden-Powell  tells  how  the  Belgian  Scouts  worked 
with  the  soldiers  in  putting  out  a  forest  fire  and  helping 
those  who  had  been  burnt  in  fighting  the  flames. 
"WTien  the  war  came,  those  boys  must  have  been  thank- 
ful that  they  knew  how  to  help. 

These  stories  of  Scouts  exemplify  one  among  many 
international  institutions  that  unite  us  to  one  another. 
If  you  were  traveling  any^vhere  and  met  a  Boy  Scout 
he  would  seem  like  a  friend,  for  you  are  united  in  the 
universal  cause  of  helpfulness. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE   PAST 

We  speak  sometimes  as  if  the  past  were  over  and 
done  with:  ''That's  past;  that's  out  of  date;  that's 
ended."  Yet  try  to  obUterate  in  your  thought  all  that 
is  past.  It  is  impossible,  of  course,  because  in  so 
doing  we  obliterate  ourselves.  Without  the  help  of 
what  we  call  the  past  we  could  not  live  at  all.  But 
conceive  yourself  alive  and  still  able  to  annul  all  past 
human  experience  as  if  an  earthquake  had  engulfed  it. 
All  science  would  vanish,  not  only  our  late  inventions 
(the  swift  means  of  communication  through  telegraph, 
telephone,  automobiles,  steam-engines,  wireless),  not 
only  our  chief  means  of  Hght  and  heat  (gas,  electricity, 
coal),  but  all  tools,  all  medicine,  all  weapons  of  de- 
fence. Architecture,  music,  painting,  books,  even 
language  itself  would  be  gone.  We  should  have  to 
build  from  the  bottom.  Suppose  we  had  to  invent 
cooking,  weaving,  writing.  Suppose  we  had  even  to 
invent  the  way  to  light  a  fire.  How  far  would  our 
individual  lives  advance?  Inevitably  not  more  than 
a  few  steps,  for  too  much  time  would  be  consumed  in 
merely  keeping  alive. 

The  past,  instead  of  being  done  with,  is,  then,  the 
real  fibre  of  the  world  as  we  know  it.  Just  as  the  food 
we  eat  nourishes  us  till  it  becomes  what  we  act  with, 
so  the  past  is  always  what  we  think  with.  We  think 
with  language;  we  reap  the  thoughts  that  our  people 
have  sowed  about  us;  we  hold,  almost  all  of  us,  the 
faith  of  our  fathers.  Some  people  are  Catholics,  some 
are  Protestants,  but  the  great  majority  of  either  are 


The  Past  61 

what  they  were  brought  up  to  be.  They  abide  in  the 
traditions  of  their  race,  resting  on  the  past  for  support. 
And  CathoHc  and  Protestant  ahke  go  back  to  early 
Christianity  for  their  source.  From  that  Uving  stream 
flows  the  water  whereof  we  drink,  and  to  call  it  past, 
in  any  sense  that  means  it  is  over  and  done  with, 
would  be  as  absurd  as  to  call  the  source  of  a  brook 
past  because  we  happened  to  live  further  down  the 
stream. 

The  past  is  alive,  not  dead.  It  influences  us  every 
moment.  Yes,  and  we  in  turn  can  direct  that  influ- 
ence, can  make  the  past  that  lives  in  the  present  differ- 
ent from  what  it  would  have  been  wdthout  us.  A 
young  man  went  out  in  the  Adirondacks  to  shoot  deer. 
Through  the  woods  he  saw  bright  eyes  shining  and 
heard  a  low  snort.  He  leveled  his  rifle  and  fired. 
The  deer  fell.  He  rushed  to  the  spot,  delighted  at  his 
luck.  But  when  he  reached  the  bleeding  deer  it  looked 
up  at  him  with  such  sad  eyes,  blurring  in  death,  that 
he  resolved  never  to  shoot  again  except  when  in  need 
of  food.  He  could  not  save  that  deer, — the  act  was 
done;  but  he  could  make  with  that  past  act  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  future. 

A  Russian  proprietor  had  as  one  of  his  tenants  a 
peasant  who  was  a  hard  drinker  of  strong  vodka.  One 
da}^  coming  home  angry  and  uncontrolled,  as  drink 
makes  a  man,  this  peasant  dealt  his  young  \^'ife  a  blow 
which  knocked  her  to  the  floor.  As  she  fell  her  head 
struck  against  the  stone  stove,  which  is  the  main  fur- 
niture of  every  Russian  moujik's  house,  and  the  blow 
killed  her.  Hearing  of  this  tragedy,  the  peasant's 
employer,  ^Michael  Tchelisheff,  was  intensely  moved. 
Then  and  there  he  resolved,  first,  that  he  would  never 
touch  vodka  himself,  and  second,  that  he  would  devote 
his  life  to  its  abolition.  Vodka  was  wholly  under 
government  control. 


62  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Tchelisheff  became  mayor  of  his  city  and  tried  to 
stop  the  sale  of  vodka.  He  failed,  naturally  enough, 
for  he  was  an  unknown  man,  and  millions  of  roubles 
were  being  made  by  the  government  through  the  sale 
of  vodka.  Undiscouraged,  he  resolved  to  get  himself 
elected  to  the  Russian  Parliament,  the'  Douma,  and 
there  to  speak  against  vodka.  Here,  again,  he  was 
laughed  at  and  scorned,  but  failure  made  his  will 
stronger.  He  resolved  to  gather  together  a  great 
body  of  facts  showing  the  evil  done  by  drinking  vodka, 
and  to  that  task  he  devoted  the  next  years  of  his  life. 
In  the  Douma  he  managed  to  form  a  party  opposed  to 
vodka,  and  finally  to  have  his  bill  for  Prohibition 
passed.  So  far  so  good,  but  it  was  blocked  by  the 
Imperial  Council. 

The  dauntless  peasant  went  directly  to  the  Czar, 
who  received  him  with  more  than  kindness,  with 
profound  interest.  Anyone  who  cares  for  his  cause 
intensely  enough  becomes  eloquent.  Tchelisheff 
roused  the  Czar  to  go  among  his  people  and  see  for 
himself  what  results,  in  crime,  disease,  failure,  and 
poverty,  were  caused  by  drink.  The  Czar  was  con- 
vinced. He  wrote  to  his  ministers,  ''The  journey 
through  several  governments  of  the  Great  Russia 
which  I  undertook  last  year  with  God's  aid,  afforded 
me  an  opportunity  to  study  directly  the  vital  needs  of 
my  people.  .  .  .  With  profound  grief,  I  saw  sorrowful 
pictures  of  the  people's  helplessness,  of  family  poverty, 
of  broken-up  households,  and  all  the  inevitable  con- 
sequences of  inebriety.  .  .  .  We  cannot  make  our  fiscal 
prosperity  dependent  upon  the  destruction  of  the  spir- 
itual and  economic  powers  of  many  of  my  subjects."* 

No  man  cuts  through  an  oak  tree  with  one  blow  of 
the  axe.  Tchelisheff  struck  again  and  again  against 
vodka,  till  the  structure  trembled.    Then  came  the 

♦  See  The  Scientific  Temperance  Journal,  April,  1916. 


The  Past  63 

hurricane  of  the  war  of  1914  to  finish  his  work.  The 
Czar  and  his  ministers  had,  through  TchelishelT,  a 
great  many  facts  before  them  concerning  the  evils  of 
vodka  in  weakening  men's  bodies  and  Avills.  When 
every  man's  courage,  strength,  and  skill  were  needed, 
vodka  could  not  be  allowed.  Very  soon  after  the  war 
was  begun  the  Czar  issued  an  order  forbidding  abso- 
lutel}^  the  sale  of  vodka  throughout  his  kingdom. 

Far  in  the  past  lay  Tchelisheff's  resolve  and  the 
crime  out  of  which  it  came.  But  in  the  present  de- 
crease of  drunkenness,  and  in  the  stronger  children's 
children  born  of  parents  who  do  not  drink,  he  can  see 
the  past  moulded  to  a  new  future.  Without  that  ex- 
perience of  the  death  of  his  tenant's  wife,  Tchelisheff 
could  not  have  seen  so  clearly  what  must  be  done.  The 
past  evil  became  a  torch  lighting  a  great  reform.  Out 
of  a  crime  Tchelisheff  created  a  new  world.  This  power 
to  make  from  the  past  a  variety  of  new  forms  is  what 
Maurice  Maeterlinck  means  by  saying,  ''The  past  is 
docile."  It  is  docile  because  we  can  teach  it  what  it 
shall  mean. 

In  this  vast  living  realm  we  call  the  past,  the  greatest 
advances  have  usually  been  made  by  many  men  and 
women  working  together.  But  a  few  men  tower 
above  the  rest  as  a  cathedral  in  some  European  city 
towers  above  the  wooden  houses  that  huddle  round 
its  base.  The  cathedral  is  the  work  of  many  men, 
but  when  it  is  finished  it  is  unique.  The  houses 
crumple  and  fall;  the  cathedral  remains.  So  in  his- 
tory certain  names  stand  out:  Buddha,  Socrates, 
Paul,  Galileo,  Shakespeare.  They  live  among  us  still 
with  a  life  keener  than  that  of  any  living  man,  because 
they  have  made  in  the  structure  of  things  an  extraordi- 
nary impression.  "The  play  of  Hamlet  is  full  of  quo- 
tations," I  once  heard  someone  say.  Shakespeare's 
words  are  so  familiar  that  he  lives  in  our  daily  speech. 


64  Our  Part  in  the  World 

The  guidance  of  those  we  call  dead  may  be  clearer  and 
of  more  value  than  that  of  those  we  call  alive. 

Of  all  the  figures  in  the  world's  history,  one  stands 
apart  as  leaving  the  deepest  mark.  Professor  Shaler 
thus  expresses  it:  ''To  take  the  most,  significant 
example,  a  Jewish  peasant  who  died  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  ago  shapes  to  this  day  by  his  brief  and 
simple  life  the  ways  of  men."* 

A  hymn  by  a  Unitarian  writer,  Sir  John  Bowring, 
sung  in  churches  of  many  creeds,  lifts  up  these  trumpet- 
like words: 

"In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 
Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time." 

It  is  literally  true  to  say  that  the  cross  of  Christ  towers 
above  the  wrecks  that  time  has  made  among  the  great 
monuments  of  the  world.  I  saw,  lately,  a  postcard 
representing  men  and  women  of  all  nations,  clad  in 
every  kind  of  raiment,  lifting  up  their  pleading  hands 
to  the  cross.  On  the  battlefields  of  Europe,  dying 
Frenchmen,  or  Germans,  English,  Greeks,  Italians, 
Serbians,  still  turn  to  the  sign  that  once  was  a  sign  of 
humiliation,  and  find  help,  for  it  has  become  a  sign  of 
spiritual  victory. f 

"It  is  finished.  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my 
spirit,"  Jesus  said  when  he  was  dying.  But  he  knew 
that  because  it  was  finished  it  was  begun.  His  life 
had  fulfilled  the  task  that  his  Father  gave  him  to  do, 
and  therefore  his  ended  life  was  a  new  beginning  for 
the  life  of  the  world. 

*  Nathaniel  S.  Shaler,  The  Neighbor,  p.  9. 
tRead  "The  Cross  at  Neuve  Chapelle"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
April,  1918. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  PRESENT 

The  Cubans  have  a  favorite  word — ''manana" 
(to-morrow) — by  which  they  are  said  to  answer  any 
request  for  work.  Not  to-day,  but  to-morrow,  they 
will  undertake  it,  and  when  to-morrow  comes  there  is 
still  another  "manana"  on  to  which  the  task  can  be 
slid.  Anyone  sending  a  Cuban  to  market  would  soon 
find  himself  saying:  ''No,  not  to-morrow.  Do  it  now." 
But  if  the  Cuban  was  more  inclined  to  argue  than  to 
work  he  might  retort:  ''How  can  I  do  it  now?  Now 
is  past,  even  before  you  have  finished  saying  the  word, 
much  more  before  I  have  started  for  market."  And 
he  would  literally  be  right.  Strictly  speaking  the 
present  vanishes  into  the  past  before  anyone  can  say 
"Jack,"  or  "Robinson"  either.  The  present  is  far 
more  slippery  than  the  past,  for  the  past  stays  like  an 
enclosed  pond;  the  present  is  like  a  brook,  whose 
waters  perpetually  glide  away. 

Whsit  do  we  mean,  then,  by  the  present?  Usually 
we  mean  a  little  section  of  time,  some  of  it  past,  some 
of  it  to  come,  but  held  together  by  a  plan,  or  an  act. 
There  is  the  present  session  of  Congress,  as  contrasted 
with  last  year's  legislature;  the  present  season  of  base- 
ball, as  contrasted  with  last  autumn's  games. 

We  use  "present"  in  another  sense  also.  An  officer 
calls  his  rank  of  soldiers:  "Present,"  they  answer, 
one  by  one.  They  are  present  here;  that  is,  together 
in  space. 

Look  in  a  shop-window.  How  many  things  can  you 
notice  in  thirty  seconds  and  then  recall,  as  a  picture 


66  Our  Part  in  the  World 

of  that  window  display?  Not  many,  though  this  is  a 
simple  task  compared  to  that  of  holding  as  present 
events  that  cover  many  experiences  in  time  and  space; 
seeing  them,  that  is,  from  beginning  to  end  as  a  whole. 
The  battle  of  Verdun,  continuing  for  months,  will  be 
present  as  a  whole  perhaps  only  to  a  few  generals  like 
Foch  or  Hindenburg.  The  Heroic  Symphony  is 
present,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  to  the  leader  of 
the  orchestra  which  plays  it,  as  it  was  to  Beethoven, 
who  wrote  it. 

I  think  of  God  as  one  to  whom  are  present  (as  a 
whole  full  of  meaning)  all  the  events  of  the  world  past 
and  to  come,  in  space  and  in  time.  That,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  what  the  Bible  means  in  saying  that  to  God  a 
thousand  years  is  as  one  day.  When  you  go  to  bed 
you  think  over  the  events  of  an  exciting  day  when  your 
school  team  beat  Andover;  and  it  is  to  you  a  single 
whole  from  the  arrival  of  the  team  to  the  last  hurrah. 
To  God,  a  thousand  years  are  as  clear,  as  present,  as 
that.  He  rejoices  that  the  purpose  of  the  world  is 
being  fulfilled.  To  God  all  things  are  present,  and  God 
is  present  in  all  things. 

God  not  only  sees  a  thousand  years  as  present.  He 
is  rightly  described  as  ''a  very  present  help  in  trouble"; 
for  when  trouble  comes,  God  is  nearer  than  we  knew 
before.  Some  day  a  great  son-ow  will  advance  toward 
you:  it  may  be  the  death  of  somebody  you  love;  it 
may  be  failure  in  what  you  want  most  to  do;  it  may 
be  disappointment  in  having  to  give  up  some  oppor- 
tunity that  seemed  certain.  As  you  see  the  blow  com- 
ing, dark  and  hea\^,  you  will  try  to  dodge  it.  You 
will  insist  to  yourself  that  your  father  is  going  to  get 
well;  that  you  can't  fail  to  be  elected  captain  of  the 
basket-ball  team;  that  there  will  be  money  enough  to 
spare,  so  that  you  can  go  on  that  Alaskan  trip. 

Then   the   blow  falls,   and   to   your   astonishment, 


The  Present  67 

help  to  bear  it  comes, — not  at  the  moment  when  you 
are  doubtful  of  its  coming,  but  at  the  moment  it  drops 
upon  you  with  crushing  weight.  Even  the  most  timid 
person  is  braver  than  he  knows  when  misfortune 
comes,  because  almost  always  the  sunny  vision  of  new 
truth  and  a  new-born  realization  of  what  ought  to  be 
done  comes  with  the  blow.  Lightning  not  only  shat- 
ters, it  shows  up  with  luminous  and  swift  flashes 
what  before  was  dark.  So  trouble  not  only  strikes, 
it  gives  insight. 

A  boy  I  know  went  to  Yale  with  the  great  desire  of 
making  either  the  "Skull  and  Bones"  or  the  "Keys." 
Not  to  get  into  one  of  the  two  most  popular  societies 
seemed  to  him  failure.  He  had  been  to  boarding- 
school  with  a  group  of  gay  and  fashionable  men,  and 
they  at  once  asked  him  to  dine  at  their  private  table. 
They  were  men  certain  of  being  "tapped"  among  the 
first,  and  his  friendship  with  them  made  more  certain 
his  success.  But  the  more  he  saw  of  these  men  the 
less  he  admired  them.  They  drank  too  much;  they 
talked  jestingly  about  writing  answers  to  probable 
examination  questions  on  their  cuffs;  they  boasted 
that  every  bill  from  a  tailor  or  washerwoman  went  at 
once  into  the  waste-paper  basket.  Tom's  dislike  of 
these  men  was  returned:  they  thought  him  brusque, 
opinionated,  self-important,  condemnatory.  He  did 
not  distinguish  between  the  good  and  the  bad  in  his 
comrades,  and  they  resented  it.  At  the  end  of  the 
term  they  re-formed  their  dining-table,  invited  to  it 
every  other  man  except  Tom,  and  quietly  dropped  him. 
With  that  fell  all  his  prospects  of  social  success. 

"It  was  the  best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  me," 
he  said  afterward.  "It  made  me  see  two  things:  first, 
that  I  had  been  behaving  like  a  boor,  and  then  that  I 
was  with  a  group  of  men  of  whom  I  could  never  make 
friends.    They  were  cutting  me  off  from  the  men  who 


68  Our  Part  in  the  World 

would  be  lasting  friends  and  from  the  studies  I  really 
cared  for.  I  was  blue  enough  at  first,  but  it  did  me 
no  end  of  good.  It  showed  things  up  as  no  less  heavy 
a  blow  could  have  done.  After  that  I  made  friends 
of  an  entirely  different  kind,  friends  I  have  never  lost; 
and  I  found  the  study  that  has  meant  most  to  me — 
philosophy." 

The  present  like  the  past  is  malleable.  We  com- 
plain of  being  thrown  with  dull  or  uncongenial  people, 
of  having  hard  luck  in  our  social  surroundings.  But 
think  of  the  way  Dickens  met  commonplace  people 
and  made  both  them  and  himself  immortal  thereby. 

Jesus,  like  many  a  boy  of  Judea,  was  brought 
up  to  build  sheds  or  boats,  or  to  catch  fish.  Other 
boys  simply  obeyed  and  followed  the  trade.  But  as 
Jesus  followed  his  trade,  he  thought  not  of  httle  houses 
and  perishing  meat,  but  of  buildings  not  made  with 
hands,  and  of  men  whose  lives  could  be  turned  to  the 
ser\'ice  of  God.  Great  ideas  carried  out  make  great 
adventures.  Jesus  needed  no  stirring  times;  where  he 
went,  life  moved  swiftly  with  the  current  of  his  search 
for  God. 

"The  event  in  itself  is  pure  water  that  flows  from 
the  pitcher  of  fate,  and  seldom  has  it  either  savour  or 
perfume  or  colour.  But  even  as  the  soul  may  be 
w^herein  it  seeks  shelter,  so  will  the  event  become 
joyous  or  sad,  become  tender  or  hateful,  become  deadly 
or  quick  with  life.  To  those  round  about  us  there 
happen  incessant  and  countless  adventures  whereof 
everyone,  it  would  seem,  contains  a  germ  of  heroism; 
but  the  adventure  passes  away,  and  heroic  deed  is 
there  none.  But  when  Jesus  Christ  met  the  Samaritan, 
met  a  few  children,  an  adulterous  woman,  then  did 
humanity  rise  three  times  in  succession  to  the  level 
of  God."* 

*  From  Wisdom  and  Destiny,  by    Maurice  Maeterlinck,  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.,  p.  28. 


The  Present  69 

I  once  went  to  see  a  woman  who  had  just  lost  her 
only  brother.  **A  great  sorrow  is  a  great  gift,"  she 
said.  What  did  she  mean?  That  sorrow,  rightly 
met,  leads  us  into  the  presence  of  that  light  that  light- 
eth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world;  that  the 
light  of  truth  destroys  illusions,  reduces  trifles  to 
their  own  petty  size,  and  illumines  the  beauty  of 
human  nature. 

The  present,  then,  is  what  we  make  it,  and  its  size 
is  exactly  that  size  which  our  hands  are  capable  of 
grasping.  What  we  make  of  that  little  point  of  time 
called  the  present  is  the  test  of  character. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  FUTURE 

It  was  the  Sunday  before  Commencement  at  Har- 
vard College.  A  group  of  seniors  and  another  group  of 
men  who  had  been  graduated  twenty-five  years  earlier 
were  each  holding  services  at  Appleton  Chapel.  One 
service  was  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  the  next  at  four. 
The  two  classes  met  at  the  doorway,  one  going  in  as 
the  other  was  coming  out.  The  seniors,  in  their  black 
mortar-board  caps  and  trailing  gowns,  looked  athletic, 
serious,  and  ambitious.  They  felt  the  sudden  inva- 
sion of  responsibility  now  that  college  was  over;  but 
they  were  determined  to  make  a  dent  in  the  world; 
that  is,  if  they  could  only  get  their  hands  on  it.  How 
to  do  this  they  did  not  quite  know. 

Into  the  chapel  marched  the  twenty-fifth-anniver- 
sary men.  They  had  made  dents  in  the  world,  some- 
times ineradicable  ones.  The  world  had  made  dents 
in  them,  too.  They  were  less  muscular  and  upright; 
they  were  balder;  and  their  faces  were  marked  with 
lines  that  made  them,  on  the  whole,  more  interesting 
and  individual  than  were  those  of  the  younger  men. 
Here  you  saw  a  man  who  had  helped  build  the  Panama 
Canal.  Responsibility  and  command  were  in  his 
eyes.  There  was  the  most  expert  physician  in  the 
United  States.  He  looked  tender  and  keen.  Here 
was  a  United  States  District  Attorney,  incorruptible 
and  eloquent.  The  preacher  who  gave  the  sermon 
was  one  of  the  class;  so  was  the  tenor  who  sang  Men- 
delssohn's ''If  with  all  your  hearts  ye  truly  seek  Me, 


The  Future  71 

ye  shall  ever  surely  find  Me."  The  seniors  going  out 
had  just  begun  to  face  the  future.  The  men  coming 
in  had  attained  or  had  failed.  Twenty-five  years  lay 
between,  written  over  with  records  of  judgment  days. 

This  event  happens  every  year  at  Harvard.  Every 
class  has  men  who  become  famous  and  men  who  fail. 
The  seniors  coming  out  from  the  Chapel  and  seeing 
the  faces  of  men  twenty-five  years  older  might  almost 
be  looking  dkectly  into  their  own  future. 

"Choose!"  the  men  coming  in  after  twenty-five 
years  might  say.     "^Miich  of  us  will  you  yourself  be?" 

Will  it  be  possible  to  choose,  or  is  a  great  part  of  our 
future  success  and  failure  luck?  At  first  you  would 
tliinlv  fortune  played  a  large  part.  One  boy  or  girl 
uiherits  riches,  another  has  an  uncle  who  finds  a  good 
place  for  liim;  another  is  poor,  unattractive,  delicate, 
or,  just  as  he  starts  on  a  promising  career,  he  is  hurt 
m  a  railroad  accident  and  maimed  for  life.  It  seems, 
then,  that  what  happens  to  us  we  often  cannot  con- 
trol. True;  but  the  way  we  each  one  act  about  what 
happens  to  us  is  in  our  power.  I  knew  a  boy  of  five 
whose  right  leg  became  so  dangerously  infected  that 
it  had  to  be  cut  off  near  the  hip,  so  high  up  indeed 
that  the  attachment  of  a  w^ooden  leg  was  wearying 
and  did  not  greatly  help.  At  sixteen  that  boy  was 
swimming,  rowing,  playing  tennis,  and  had  prepared 
for  college.  He  took  his  misfortune  gaily  and  stanchly 
from  the  first.  ''Of  course  I  can  get  into  a  boat  much 
quicker  than  you  can,"  I  once  heard  him  say.  "I've 
only  one  leg  to  get  in."  So  he  will  go  ahead  in  life 
all  the  faster  for  his  handicap.  He  knows  he  must 
work  harder,  and  he  is  the  more  liked  and  admired 
because  people  realize  the  heavy  burden  he  carries 
so  lightly. 

Every  careful  research,  every  year's  experience, 
shows  that,  talented  or  simple,  the  men  and  women 


72  Our  Pari  in  the  World 

who  have  moral  strength  succeed  because  they  are 
needed  and  wanted. 

Our  future  is  in  our  power — not,  indeed,  what  happens 
to  us,  but  what  we  do  with  what  happens  to  us.  Any 
mishap  can  become  happiness;  any  chance  event  can 
be  made  my  chance.  Frankhn  might  have  attracted 
hghtning  with  a  key  and  merely  burnt  his  fingers. 
Because  he  was  Franklin,  he  made  a  study  of  the  use 
of  electricity.  We  cannot  all  be  Franklins,  of  course, 
nor  do  we  have  to  be;  but  we  can  do  something  worth 
while,  if  we  take  whatever  happens  to  us  in  the  way 
that  Franklin  took  the  lightning  shock. 

How  can  we  best  meet  an  unknown  future?  Three 
things  seem  to  be  essential:  resolve,  resource,  dis- 
cipline. In  1916  a  society  for  special  aid  in  prepared- 
ness was  started  in  Boston.  Questions  were  sent 
round  to  every  member,  asking:  ''What  can  you  do 
in  an  emergency?  Mark  your  choice  on  the  following 
list."  Then  came  such  suggestions  as  cooking,  nurs- 
ing, knitting,  dressmaking,  stenography,  running  a 
motor  car,  raising  vegetables,  and  the  like. 

One  of  my  friends,  an  exceptionally  talented  girl, 
champion  in  golf  contests,  expert  in  dancing,  violin- 
playing  and  bridge  whist,  was  suddenly  horrified  at  her 
own  deficiencies.  ''There  is  nothing  useful  I  know 
how  to  do,"  she  bemoaned.  Of  course  she  could  learn, 
but  she  was  unprepared.  War  may  never  again  come 
to  America,  but  emergencies  mil  surely  come.  If  we 
are  to  meet  our  own  future,  or  the  far  more  important 
future  of  our  nation,  we  must  be  trained  and  disci- 
plined to  accurate  and  thorough  work.  We  must 
learn  to  stand  criticism,  to  keep  at  any  task  till  it  is 
done,  not  only  passably,  but  right  up  to  the  mark. 
We  must  be  clear-headed  and  we  must  be  resolute 
and  resourceful. 

Life  in  a  city  is  small  test  of  anyone's  ability  to  deal 


The  Future  73 

with  emergencies.  Said  my  nature-loving  friend,  Mr. 
Phillips,  rather  scornfully:  "In  a  city,  if  you  miss 
your  party  or  your  connections,  you  take  a  five- 
dollar  bill  and  go  to  a  hotel.  When  you  are  alone 
in  the  woods,  money  is  of  no  use  to  you." 

This  man  kne^^•.  A  few  years  ago  he  went  for  his 
vacation  to  an  unfrequented  lake  in  Labrador,  with 
an  Indian  as  guide.  The  Indian  asserted,  with  great 
assurance,  that  he  had  been  to  this  particular  spot 
many  times;  but  on  the  third  day,  as  the  food  supply 
diminished  and  no  signs  of  the  lake  appeared,  he 
admitted  that  he  had  lied.  He  had  never  been  there 
and  was  absolutely  lost. 

Silently  the  city  man  turned  round.  Without  any 
knowledge  of  the  country,  and  with  only  a  day's  sup- 
ply of  food,  they  must  find  then-  way  back  to  the  camp 
whence  they  came.  They  had  no  map  and  no  guide 
but  a  compass, — and  a  compass  is  useless  unless  you 
know  in  what  du-ection  you  want  to  go.  The  general 
direction  must  be  south  and  toward  the  river;  that  was 
all  my  friend  could  tell. 

The  wood  was  thick.  IMany  of  the  trees  had  fallen 
so  that  the  two  men  had  to  scramble  over  rough,  bare 
branches  with  hollow  depths  below.  Doggedly  they 
went.  Then  came  a  crash  and  a  moan.  The  Indian 
had  fallen  through  the  branches  into  a  deep  hole  and 
broken  his  leg.  What  should  be  done?  There  were 
but  two  alternatives:  to  leave  the  Indian  with  what 
remained  of  the  food  beside  him  and  go  swiftly  for 
help,  or  to  carry  hun  painfully  through  those  broken 
and  tortuous  woods.  The  Indian  in  piteous  tones 
maintained  that  he  should  die  if  left  alone.  Very  well, 
he  should  be  carried.  He  was  over  six  feet  tall  and 
weighed  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds.  In  addition 
to  the  Indian  there  was  a  rifle,  an  axe,  a  heavy  pack  of 
blankets,  a  shelter  tent,  frjdng-pans  and  food  to  carry. 


74  Our  Part  in  the  World 

My  friend  strapped  the  groaning  Indian  over  his 
back;  carried  him  as  far  as  he  could  stand  the  weight, 
lifted  him  down  and  went  back  to  get  the  pack  and 
rifle.  Again  and  again  was  this  wearisome  process 
repeated  till,  as  dark  was  drawing  in,  he,  heard  a  wel- 
come sound  of  waters, — the  river  was  near.  The  river, 
but  no  boat,  of  course.  With  his  axe  he  cut  some  long 
logs;  he  had  no  rope  or  nails,  but  he  tied  the  logs 
together  with  strips  of  the  flexible  moose- wood.  He 
cut  himself  a  pole  of  spruce,  skinned  off  the  bark  care- 
fully to  a  smooth  surface  that  would  not  chafe  his  hands, 
lifted  the  Indian  on  board  the  raft,  put  on  rifle,  axe 
and  food,  and  poled  down.  What  a  relief  after  the 
weight  he  had  lifted  in  the  tangle  of  rough  woods! 
But  his  troubles  were  not  over.  As  he  poled  he  heard 
rapids  ahead.  It  was  too  late  to  go  back,  and  he 
knew  that  his  hastily-built  raft  would  not  stand  the 
strain. 

''We'll  go  as  far  as  we  can,"  he  thought,  ''and  then 
swim."  Two-thirds  of  the  way  through,  the  raft 
whirled  about,  smashed  against  the  rocks  and  sank. 
Mr.  Phillips  swam  at  once  to  the  Indian,  lifted  him 
above  the  water  and  bore  him  ashore.  Food,  equip- 
ment, axe,  raft  and  rifle  were  sunk  in  the  water.  He 
laid  the  Indian  on  a  bank  and  walked  along  the  shore. 
A  hundred  yards  off  he  saw  his  own  camp,  with  food, 
shelter  and  supplies. 

Our  own  future  may  be  spiritually  and  physically  as 
rough,  wild,  comphcated  as  this  adventure.  To  meet 
its  uncertainties  we  need  to  know  what  to  do  in  woods 
where  we  have  lost  our  life-way  and  in  whirlpools  that 
break  to  pieces  our  cherished  hopes. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  CHURCH 

How  many  churches  are  there  in  your  town?  Why 
do  we  have  churches  at  all?  What  is  the  use  of  a 
church?  It  is  clear  enough,  of  course,  what  markets, 
dry-goods  stores,  gas-houses,  banks  and  business  of- 
fices, coal-wharves  and  water-reservoirs  are  for.  No- 
body can  live  without  food,  and  in  our  climate  it  would 
be  difficult  to  live  without  warm  clothes  and  without 
light  and  heat.  Banks  and  business  offices  are  useful 
to  bring  about  the  quick  and  easy  exchange  of  one  kind 
of  goods  for  another  through  the  medium  of  money. 
These  are  useful  institutions.  Yes,  but  useful  for  what? 
You  say, — to  keep  us  alive,  to  help  us  to  earn  money, 
or  even  to  become  rich.  This  is  true;  but  what  is 
the  use  of  being  rich?  You  have  heard  the  story  of  a 
rich  man  obliged  to  flee  from  a  burning  island  and 
unwilling  to  part  with  his  gold.  All  of  it  that  he  could 
carry  he  did  up  in  a  bag  and  hung  about  his  waist. 
Then  he  plunged  into  the  water  and  made  for  shore. 
He  had  s^^aml  but  a  few  strokes  when  he  sank,  never 
to  rise  again.     His  gold  had  weighted  him  down. 

Money  always  does  weight  people  down  unless  they 
use  it  for  something.  For  money  is  a  medium  of  ex- 
change; that  is,  it  is  just  a  means,  a  way,  to  get  some- 
thing else.  With  money  we  can  buy  a  great  many 
valuable  things.  But  there  are  certain  still  more  im- 
portant possessions  that  money  cannot  buy.  Service 
can  be  bought  with  money,  but  love  cannot,  nor  peace 
of  mind,  nor  eternal  life.  To  have  friends,  to  be 
loved,  to  be  at  peace,  to  have  what  we  do  continue 


76  Our  Part  in  the  World 

after  death, — these  are  goods  of  a  kind  different  from 
worldly  possessions. 

One  of  my  friends  was  in  San  Francisco  during  the 
great  earthquake.  For  three  days  the  fires  caused  by 
the  earthquake  burned,  until  finally  his  house  was 
wholly  destroyed.  As  he  stood  looking  ^t  the  ruins 
of  his  property,  he  told  me  that  his  first  thought  and  his 
last  thought,  too,  was:  "What  does  it  matter  if  all 
my  worldly  possessions  go?  Everything  that  is  im- 
portant remains.  I  have  my  wife  and  my  children 
safe;  I  have  strength  and  my  hands  to  work  for  their 
support.  It  is  enough."  If  my  friend  had  lost  his 
wife  and  baby  and  had  saved  his  money  he  would  not 
have  been  happy.  If  he  had  saved  his  house  by  some 
unfair  use  of  the  city  water  supply  he  would  have  been 
still  less  happy.  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain 
the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?" 

Two  studies  have  it  as  their  aim  to  find  out  and  to 
give  us  the  key  to  what  is  really  worth  while  and  lasting: 
one  is  philosophy,  the  love  of  wisdom;  the  other  is 
theology,  the  study  concerning  God.  Some  philoso- 
phers have  said  that  pleasure  is  what  we  all  want  most, 
and  some  have  said  power.  But,  after  all,  pleasure 
comes"  and  goes.  We  cannot  keep  it  secure.  A  sharp 
toothache  drives  it  away.  The  death  of  a  friend  leaves 
us  careless  of  what  used  to  give  us  pleasure.  Success 
and  power  we  want,  of  course.  To  be  a  famous  sur- 
geon, an  actor  who  can  make  his  audience  laugh  or 
cry,  a  baseball  player  earning  thousands  of  dollars  and 
applauded  by  thousands  of  hands, — this  is  a  thing  to 
dream  of.  But  even  if  you  get  it,  does  it  last?  Base- 
ball players  drop  out  by  the  age  of  thirty;  singers' 
voices  grow  too  old  to  please;  actors  must  make  their 
"positively-last"  appearance  before  the  public  gets 
tired  of  them.  And  then  even  the  strongest  men  and 
women  die.    What  lasts  after  death?    I  suppose  this 


The  Church  77 

question  has  been  more  eagerly  and  more  persistently 
asked  than  any  other.  Religion  alone  gives  the  answer 
with  entire  confidence.  That  is  one  reason  why  gen- 
eration after  generation  turns  to  religion. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  I  asked  about  the 
value  of  churches.  We  can  answer  now.  We  come 
to  church  and  Sunday  school  to  learn  what  is  most 
worth  while,  and  we  find  that  what  is  most  worth 
while  is  that  wliich  is  permanent  and  brings  enduring 
peace  and  joy.  Nothing  can  give  this  but  religion. 
Religion  tells  us  of  God;  throughout  all  history  there 
has  been  no  one  who  knew  God  as  intimately  and  fully 
or  who  followed  God  as  perfectly  as  Jesus.  That  is 
why  we  study  the  Old  Testament,  which  is  the  back- 
ground of  Chi'ist's  life,  and  the  New  Testament,  which 
is  the  story  of  what  he  resigned  and  what  he  sought 
for,  of  what  he  said  and  did,  and  of  what  others  said 
and  did  under  his  inspiration. 

As  you  learn  of  great  men  and  women  in  history  you 
will  more  and  more  be  surprised  to  find  how  little  the 
things  that  most  people  find  important  mattered  to 
them.  It  is  not  that  they  would  not  enjoy  good  food, 
handsome  furniture  or  clothes,  comfortable  houses, 
beautiful  jewels,  the  homage  of  men,  as  much  as  any- 
one. But  they  are  too  busy,  too  full  of  something  else 
they  find  more  important,  to  care  much,  comparatively, 
for  these  things.  Michael  Angelo  wants  most  to  paint 
the  Sistine  Chapel;  Dante,  to  write  his  Divine  Comedy; 
Lincoln,  to  bring  the  nation  together  in  peace;  Florence 
Nightingale,  to  nurse  wounded  soldiers;  Captain 
Robert  Scott,  to  find  the  South  Pole;  and  each  one 
knows  that  you  cannot  eat,  drink  and  be  merry  every 
day  if  you  want  most  to  accomplish  any  of  these  things. 

A  man's  deepest  aim  is  his  joy,  his  peace;  it  is  to 
him  as  his  food.  This  was  what  Jesus  meant  when  he 
told  his  disciples  that  he  had  meat  to  eat  that  they 


78  Our  Part  in  the  World 

knew  not  of.  Jesus  had  none  of  the  things  that  often 
seem  to  absorb  men.  He  was  very  poor;  he  owned 
neither  house  nor  land;  during  all  his  life  he  influenced 
only  a  few  people,  and  these  mostly  of  humble  station. 
He  did  not  live  even  to  middle  age;  and  he  died  a  most 
painful  death,  deserted  at  the  last  by  most  of  his  dis- 
ciples. And  yei  Jesus  was  at  peace,  for  he  had  found, 
the  pearl  of  great  price  and  was  ready  to  give  up  all 
else.     He  knew  and  rejoiced  to  fulfil  the  will  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
OUR  DEPENDENCE  ON  GOD 

"O  God,  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  '*.\lmighty  God,  unto  whom  all  hearts  are 
open,  all  desires  known,  and  from  whom  no  secrets  are 
hid."  ''O  God,  who  so  carest  for  every  one  of  us  as 
though  Thou  carest  for  him  alone  and  so  for  all  as 
though  all  were  but  one." 

Here  are  the  opening  sentences  of  tliree  ancient 
prayers  that  have  lived  tlu'ough  many  centuries  be- 
cause of  their  eternal  truth.  The  meaning  of  the  last 
is  magnificent  and  clear.  The  meaning  of  the  first 
and  second  is  more  puzzling.  The  first  prayer  tells 
us  that  God  is  inescapable.  Some  people  seem  to 
need  solitude.  They  get  tired  and  irritable  unless  they 
can  have  some  time  by  themselves.  Others  hate  to 
be  alone.  They  feel  lonely  or  uneasy  unless  there 
is  someone  around  to  talk  to  or  play  mth  or  even  just 
to  be  with  in  silence. 

Really  to  be  alone  would  be  terrifying.  But  is  any- 
one ever  wholly  alone?  No;  just  as  there  is  never  any 
space  with  nothing  in  it,  so  there  is  never  any  time  with 
no  presence  in  it;  never  utter  solitude.  We  call  our- 
selves alone.  What  do  we  think  about?  We  say  that 
we  recall  people,  or  events.  The  phrase  is  accurate. 
We  recall, — we  call  them  back  into  our  presence.  We 
can  never  be  wholly  separate  from  the  people  we  know, 
for  because  we  have  once  been  with  them  their  influ- 
ence is  still  about  us.  Robinson  Crusoe  felt  very  soli- 
tary in  his  desert  island,  but  he  felt  solitary  just  be- 
cause the  presence  of  people  was  all  about  him.     If  he 


80  Our  Part  in  the  World 

had  never  known  them  he  would  not  have  missed  them, 
he  would  not  have  known  what  loneliness  meant.  He 
had  with  him  his  axe.  Who  invented  axes?  Not  he. 
He  spoke  aloud  the  English  language,  the  voice  of  great 
numbers  of  people.     Their  life  was  still  ab.out  him. 

At  the  other  extreme  is  that  miller  of  Dee,  of  whom 
Isaac  Bickerstaff  writes  in  his  play,  ''Love  in  a  Village " : 

"There  was  a  jolly  miller  once, 
Lived  on  the  river  Dee; 
He  worked  and  sung  from  morn  till  night: 
No  lark  more  blithe  than  he. 

"And  this  the  burden  of  his  song 
Forever  used  to  be, — 
I  care  for  nobody,  no,  not  I, 
If  no  one  cares  for  me." 

He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  got  well  rid  of  people. 
But  as  he  sang  and  worked,  with  whose  words  did  he 
sing  and  for  whom  was  he  working?  The  world  that 
loved  music,  the  world  that  had  invented  the  grind- 
ing of  grain  into  flour  and  the  baking  of  flour  into  bread 
was  still  sustaining  his  solitary  life.  We  can  never 
be  free  from  our  fellow-men,  because,  however  isolated 
we  seem  to  be,  we  still  have  our  being — that  is  our 
human  characteristics  — from  them. 

Even  more  true  is  it  that  in  God  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  You  lose  your  way  in  the  woods 
and  dread  that  you  may  never  get  home.  But  you 
never  doubt  that  the  place  you  call  home  exists,  or  that 
there  is  a  way  there  if  you  could  find  it.  You  know 
that  reality  holds  firm  even  when  you  are  bewildered. 
If  everything  about  you  were  shifting,  if  magic  ruled, 
if  the  logs  for  your  fire  flowed  away  like  water  or  your 
boat  suddenly  became  iron  and  sank,  you  would  be 
wholly  baffled  and  without  God.  God  is  stability  and 
order  and  by  these  alone  are  we  able  to  live  and  move. 


Our  Dependence  on  God  81 

God  is  the  final  reality,  within  whose  certainty  we  can 
act  with  confidence. 

The  second  prayer  that  I  quoted  spoke  of  God  as 
one  to  whom  all  hearts  are  open,  ^\^len  the  Roentgen 
Ra}^  was  disco\-ered  and  first  used  to  photograph  in- 
visible bones  in  our  bodies,  I  heard  astonished  people 
say,  "Well,  they  will  soon  be  seeing  our  thoughts  right 
tlii'ough  our  brains!"  An  absurd  idea  it  was,  and  yet 
it  made  me  wonder  how  it  would  be  if  not  only  what 
we  chose  to  say  but  all  our  passing  thoughts  were 
known  to  our  comrades.  There  would  be  many 
thoughts  of  vanity,  of  scorn,  of  pettiness,  of  selfish- 
ness, of  cowardice,  that  one  would  hate  to  have  known. 
I  think,  too,  that  there  would  be  impulses  to  help, 
kind  desires,  aspirations,  courageous  resolves,  that  now 
are  never  known.  Never  known,  that  is,  except  to 
God, — a  very  miportant  exception!  God  hears  as 
clearly  what  we  mean  as  others  hear  what  we  shout 
aloud.  But  God  does  not  judge  as  others  judge  us. 
He  does  not  call  us  cowards  because  we  shrink,  or 
liars  because  we  have  wavered  from  the  truth.  He 
sees  us  moving  on  a  path  toward  or  away  from  courage 
and  truth.  He  knows  we  are  not  brave  when  we  boast 
of  an  act  that  happened  to  be  easy  for  us,  nor  cowardly 
when  we  do  our  level  best  to  overcome  fear, — and  fail. 
So  God  condemns  us  often  when  our  comrades  applaud, 
and  upholds  us  when  our  fellow-men  condemn. 

From  God  no  secrets  are  hid.  God  is  the  truth 
and  in  truth  is  victory.  When  I  was  sixteen  the  verses 
that  meant  most  to  me  were  Arthur  Hugh  Clough's: 

"It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so: 
That,  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Whate'cr  I  do,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That,  if  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall." 


82  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Something  in  the  universe,  or,  more  truly,  the  universe 
in  its  wholeness,  is  unshakable.  Everybody  knows  the 
miserable  feehng  of  slipping  into  a  lie  when  asked  a 
sudden  awkward  question.  That  lie  is  like  a  dockweed, 
it  keeps  scattering  seeds  about  and  other  lies  grow  out 
of  it.  One  awkward  question  is  followed  by  another, 
and  you  lie  again  because  each  lie  tumbles  down  with 
a  loud  thump  unless  you  back  it  up  by  more.  But 
truth  stands  firm  alone,  and  the  more  a  truthful 
person  is  found  out,  the  steadier  the  situation  becomes. 
I  suppose  the  reason  that  we  feel  shaky  when  we  lie 
is  because  we  are  fighting  with  our  pigmy  strength 
against  the  Truth,  and  so  against  God.  Once,  during 
the  hardest  struggles  of  the  Civil  War,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  asked  if  he  thought  God  was  on  the  side  of 
the  North.  "I'm  not  so  much  concerned  as  to  whether 
God  is  on  our  side,"  he  answered,  "but  as  to  whether 
we  are  on  God's  side."  Lincoln's  desires  were  rooted 
in  truth  and  so  held  firm  in  God. 


I 


CHAPTER  XIX 
OUR  DEPENDENCE  ON  ONE  ANOTHER 

Here  is  a  characteristic  story  told  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  When  he  was  President  an  acquaintance 
found  him  one  day  blacking  his  boots.  "Why,  Mr. 
Lincoln,"  exclaimed  the  visitor  in  a  shocked  voice, 
''do  you  black  your  own  boots? "  "Well,  yes,"  replied 
Lincoln,  drily;  "whose  boots  would  you  have  me 
black?" 

Lincoln  was  too  independent  to  be  ashamed  to  black 
his  boots,  even  if  he  were  President.  To  be  unable  to 
care  for  himself  would  make  him  to  that  extent  de- 
pendent. For,  after  all,  who  are  the  dependent  classes? 
Not  the  energetic  poor  who  learn  to  turn  their  hand  to 
any  needed  task,  but  those,  rich  or  poor,  who  are  slack, 
lazy,  uninterested  in  learning  to  do  anything  well, 
who  do  not  know  how  to  think  well,  or  to  cook  well; 
how  to  cut  out  a  dress,  or  to  cut  down  expenses  in  a 
factory;  how  to  put  an  argument  before  a  judge,  or 
to  put  in  a  window-sash;  how  to  develop  a  tract  of 
land,  or  to  develop  a  plan  of  campaign. 

There  is  another  sense,  however,  in  which  every  one 
of  us  is  dependent  all  the  time.  I  spoke  in  the  last 
chapter  of  our  dependence  on  people  even  when  we 
are  alone.  Clearly,  all  of  us  depend  on  our  parents,  for 
without  them  we  could  not  have  lived  at  all.  Most 
of  you  depend  on  them  for  the  continuance  of  life 
through  food.  If  you  could  see  in  a  heap  all  the  meat, 
vegetables,  bread  and  sugar  you  eat  in  a  year  it  would 
startle  you!  We  are  dependent  on  our  parents  for 
physical  shelter,  and  even  more  for  the  shelter  of  our 


84  Our  Part  in  the  World 

spirits,  exposed  to  ridicule  and  distrust.  Others  may 
dislike  and  cast  us  off;  then  we  turn  and  feel  the  solid 
strength  on  which  we  lean,  the  strength  of  home. 

We  depend  not  only  on  our  families  but  to  some  de- 
gree on  many  nations  of  Europe,  Asia  and  South 
America  for  supplies.  Beet  sugar  for  your  cereal  may 
have  come  from  Germany;  the  flax  in  your  linen 
tablecloth  was  probably  woven  in  Ireland;  the  banana 
you  had  for  lunch  may  have  grown  in  Costa  Rica;  the 
wool  of  your  winter  coat  was  perchance  sheared  off 
flocks  in  Australian  pastures;  your  fireworks  for  the 
glorious  Fourth  originated  in  China;  a  Japanese  plate 
held  the  rice  grown,  it  may  be,  in  the  swamps  of  India, 
and  your  father's  coffee  probably  came  from  Arabia. 
When  the  European  war  largely  cut  off  supplies  from 
Germany,  we  realized  suddenly  that  we  had  depended 
on  her  for  dyestuffs,  medicines,  coal-tar  products,  and 
for  thousands  of  other  articles,  from  microscopes  to 
Christmas  toys. 

The  entire  world  is  linked  together.  Touch  any 
part  of  the  chain  and  the  whole  vibrates.  The  very 
day  that  Roumania  declared  war  against  Austria, 
American  wheat  went  down  in  price,  for  Roumania 
began  to  supply  the  Allies. 

Not  only  for  maintaining  our  civilization  as  it  is, 
but  for  advance  in  whatever  we  undertake,  we  depend 
on  the  discoveries  and  on  the  inventions  made  in 
different  countries.  If  we  did  not  have  an  alphabet  we 
should  have  to  invent  one;  but  this  was  done  for  us 
long  ago,  apparently  by  the  Egyptians,  Phoenicians 
and  Greeks.  The  Chinese,  as  early  as  123  B.C.,  had 
a  kind  of  paper  far  cheaper  than  the  Egyptian  papyrus. 
Printing,  that  makes  the  books  of  all  time  accessible 
to  us,  was  invented  in  Germany;  and  it  is  good  to  think 
that  the  first  book  printed,  in  1450,  was  a  complete 
Bible.    America  has  done   her  share   in  inventions. 


Our  Dependence  on  One  Another  85 

She  has  given  the  world  the  cotton  gin,  telegraph, 
telephone,  the  Wright  aeroplane,  and  many  other 
valuable  ideas.  All  nations  and  all  times,  then,  belong 
together,  because  help  is  given  from  all  to  each.  Only 
by  the  cooperation  of  all  countries  can  the  old  world 
plunge  ahead  into  clearer  air. 

Even  more  than  we  depend  on  physical  supplies  do 
we  depend  on  one  another's  character.  Clearly,  there 
may  come  a  time  when — in  a  country  with  as  wide 
a  temperate  zone  as  ours — we  shall  cultivate  most  of 
the  necessities  of  life  within  our  own  borders;  but 
there  will  never  come  a  time  when  we  do  not  depend 
with  all  our  weight  on  each  other's  truth  and  honesty. 
We  rely  on  the  bank  to  take  care  of  our  money;  on 
the  railroad  company  to  keep  road-bed  and  equip- 
ment safe  for  travel;  on  the  fidelity  of  engineers  and 
firemen  to  whom  we  intrust  our  lives.  Integrity  of 
character  is  an  essential  element  of  our  civilization. 
Unless  we  could  depend  upon  it,  in  the  main,  in  all 
our  deahngs,  we  could  not  retain  what  the  past  has 
bequeathed  us  nor  take  a  step  forward. 

For  the  structure  of  our  civilization  rests  largely 
on  the  high  standard  of  right  and  wrong  that  the  best 
people  uphold.  A  merchant  who  refuses  to  advertise 
falsely;  a  doctor  who  will  never  lie  to  his  patient; 
a  janitor  who  scrupulously  returns  the  money  he 
finds  left  by  tenants;  a  nurse  who  will  not  shirk  the 
hardest  strain  or  the  most  disagreeable  task;  a  poli- 
tician who  lives  not  as  eye-server,  but  with  good  will 
doing  service  unto  the  State, — these  people  steady 
and  upbuild  our  ideals  of  right. 

Because  they  are  nearest  to  us,  it  is  especially  our 
parents  and  our  friends  who  hold  us  to  standards  we 
should  have  been  too  weak  to  sustain  alone.  An 
American  lad  of  twenty-two  writes  thus  to  his  parents 
from  the  trenches  near  the  River  Sonune  in  France: 


86  Our  Part  in  the  World 

"All  your  letters  arrive  day  by  day,  and  I  am  so 
glad  to  get  them.  They  are  somethmg  to  hold  on 
to  m  the  midst  of  this  wild,  bewildering  life  I  lead. 
I  wonder  how  I  am  going  to  keep  my  head  under  fire? 
The  first  moment  will  be  frightful.  Happily  I  have 
a  pretty  complete  mastery  of  my  person  and  will 
soon  show  my  carcasse  what  I  think  of  it." 

Then  a  month  later:  "I  have  been  thro'  my  first 
battle.  I  am  a  baptized  soldier.  I  had  to  live  up 
to  the  standard  you  had  raised  me  to.  You  were  so 
brave,  how  could  I  not  grin  and  bear  it, — both  of 
you  deserve  to  be  cite"   (honorably   mentioned).* 

Some  years  ago,  a  boy  whose  parents  drank  and 
neglected  him  was  sent  by  a  charitable  agency  to  a 
Boston  merchant,  with  a  note  asking  whether  he 
could  take  the  lad  into  his  office.  Fred  was  shabbily 
dressed;  his  inheritance  was  against  him,  and  he 
admitted  that  his  education  had  been  meagre.  The 
merchant  smiled,  and  said  he  would  give  Fred  a  trial. 
There  were  complicated  issues  coming  up  in  the  mills 
of  the  State,  and  the  president  of  the  company,  natu- 
rally, had  his  time  full;  yet  he  never  seemed  to  forget 
Fred,  nor,  indeed,  anyone  in  his  office.  One  day  he 
brought  the  stenographer  some  sweet  peas  from  his 
garden;  another  day  he  suggested  that  Fred  might 
like  to  go  to  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Union  for 
evening  games,  and  handed  him  a  letter  to  the  presi- 
dent. At  Christmas  Fred  found  a  check  on  his  desk, 
with  "Merry  Christmas!  Perhaps  you  would  hke 
to  get  a  new  suit,"  written  on  the  envelope;  and 
unexpectedly,  the  first  of  January  his  salary  was 
raised. 

Fred  had  never  thought  much  about  rehgion  before, 
but  he  felt  its  presence  now;  and  one  day  his  sudden 
question  came:  "What  church  does  the  president 
goto?" 

♦Letter  in  Boston  Transcript  of  August  28,  1916,  p.  11.  : 


Our  Dependence  on  One  Another  87 

"Unitarian,"  answered  the  head  clerk.  "Why  do 
you  want  to  know?" 

"I  want  to  have  the  same  rehgion  he  does,"  repUed 
Fred. 

This  is  what  Emerson  means  in  his  couplet: 

"  Nor  knowest  thou  what  argument 
Thy  life  to  thy  neighbor's  creed  hath  lent." 


CHAPTER  XX 
EVERYBODY'S  INTERESTS 

When  you  see  a  crowd  of  people  lingering  on  a  street 
corner  and  others  joining  them  one  by  one  as  if  at- 
tracted by  a  magnet,  you  make  a  shrewd  guess  what  to 
expect; — horse  down,  fire  engine,  lost  child,  news  on 
the  Bulletin  Board — "Red  Sox  win!" — will  be  some  of 
your  guesses.  These  things  are  everybody's  concern. 
Gay,  tragic  or  startling  events  these  are,  and  when 
they  crop  up  something  deeper  in  us  than  our  differ- 
ences unites  us. 

There  are  other  interests  which  we  all  share  and  yet 
which  lead  our  thoughts  along  separate  paths.  Every 
normal  mother  cares  for  her  own  son  whether  he  be 
Abraham  Lincoln  or  Jesse  Pomeroy;  every  man  whose 
soul  is  alive  cares  for  his  nation,  yet  while  Walter  Scott 
cares  for  Scotland,  Heine  cares  for  Germany,  and  Gari- 
baldi for  the  beloved  Italy  he  helped  to  free.  Another 
common  interest  leading  through  a  universal  channel 
out  to  a  special  person  is  shown  in  the  rhyme: 

"And  each  man  thought  of  a  different  girl, 
But  they  all  sang  Annie  Laurie." 

Our  common  interests  or  loyalties  include  our  family, 
our  friends,  our  work,  our  nation.  Stretching  beyond 
these  on  the  horizon  are  two  other  great  common  con- 
cerns, the  interest  in  democracy  and  the  perennial 
interest  in  religion.  In  our  time  we  are  looking  straight 
into  the  soul  of  democracy,  a  democracy  that  is  born 
of  patriotism,  yet  is  even  greater  in  its  scope.     Presi- 


Everybody's  Interests  S9 

dent  Wilson,  in  his  resounding  speech  of  April  2,  1917, 
said,  "The  world  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy." 

In  less  than  three  days  those  great  words  echoed 
round  the  globe.  British  soldiers  printed  and  tossed 
them  from  airplanes  into  the  German  lines.  Wilson's 
speech  was  translated  and  read  to  French  and  Italian 
children  in  every  school.  Newly-freed  Russia  rejoiced; 
from  ^Mesopotamia  were  heard  the  hurrahs  of  British 
and  Indian  soldiers;  from  snowy  Siberia  twenty  thou- 
sand released  political  exiles  returning  on  their  end- 
less procession  of  sledges  must  have  shouted  for  joy. 
Democracy,  the  government  of  the  people  by  them- 
selves, is  everyone's  interest.  The  spirit  of  Lincoln 
has  arisen  anew  and  America  breathes  untainted  air 
when  its  President  proclaims  that  "we  must  dedicate 
ourselves  and  our  fortunes,  everything  that  we  are 
and  everything  that  we  have,  to  the  principles  that 
gave  us  birth." 

"WTien  the  President  ended  this,  one  of  the  most 
important  speeches  in  all  history,  he  ended  it,  speak- 
ing for  America,  in  these  words,  ''God  helping  her,  she 
can  do  no  other."  Why  did  President  Wilson  use 
religious  words?  Because  the  deepest  concern  of 
everybody  is  religion.  I  know  that  it  does  not  seem 
so,  and  that  a  great  many  people  do  not  realize  that 
this  is  their  chief  interest.  You  know  people  who  much 
prefer  the  latest  novel  to  church,  who  seem  far  more 
interested  in  the  last  edition  of  a  newspaper  than  in 
the  Bible.  Yes,  in  the  latest  novel  and  in  to-day's 
newspaper,  but  the  novel  of  a  century  ago  has  little 
appeal  and  the  newspaper  of  last  week  must  choose 
between  being  wrapping-paper  or  fuel.  It  is  not  the 
quick-growing  poplar  tree  that  lives  long,  but  the  slow 
and  strong  cedar  of  Lebanon.  Newspapers  and  novels 
are  temporary  and  local;  the  Bible  and  the  Church 
Universal    are    permanent    and    far-reaching.     They 


90  Our  Part  in  the  World 

draw  to  themselves  those  who  know  hfe  and  who  want 
the  eternal.  They  draw  all  men  when  they  are  feel- 
ing most  strongly  and  thinking  most  keenly.  Under 
the  stress  of  battle  thousands  of  careless  young  men 
are  joining  communion  classes.  Few  mothers  but 
want  a  christening  to  express  their  gratitude  and  hope 
for  each  child.  Almost  no  one  is  there  who  does  not 
desire  the  church  service  after  death  has  touched  his 
household.  When  we  are  living  most  deeply,  we  need 
religion  most. 

Still  I  almost  hope  you  will  not  believe  it  when  I 
say  that  religion  is  everyone's  deepest  interest.  Why 
do  I  hope  so?  Because  it  is  too  important  a  truth  to 
be  believed  on  anyone's  assertion.  If  on  my  state- 
ment alone  you  believed  that  religion  was  of  the 
deepest  concern  to  everybody,  you  might  accept  the 
next  man's  sneering  opinion  that  religion  was  out- 
grown in  these  "progressive"  days.  We  can  only  be 
quite  sure  that  religion  is  our  deepest  and  most  wide- 
spread interest  when  we  have  experienced  the  begin- 
nings of  religion  for  ourselves  and  have  seen  its  light 
in  the  faces  of  others. 

When,  then,  does  this  experience  come,  and  how? 
Certain  experiences  that  will  come  to  you,  and  to 
everyone  you  know,  we  sometimes  call  searching  ex- 
periences. They  really  are  just  this.  They  search  us 
as  a  policeman  might  search  a  prisoner,  or  a  highway- 
man his  victim.  "What  do  you  possess  of  any  value? " 
They  throw  aside  our  trifles,  and  search  for  the  real. 
And  then  we  turn  and,  on  our  part,  search  the  experi- 
ence to  find  what  it  means,  where  it  leads,  why  it  has 
happened. 

Sooner  or  later  you  will  find  yourself  asking  one  or 
another  of  these  questions:  Is  the  world  good  or  evil, 
this  world  that  is  so  exposed  to  suffering?  Is  there 
any  value  in  suffering?     How  can  I  keep  happy  even 


Everybody's  Interests  91 

when  everything  goes  against  me?  What  can  a 
person  take  hold  of  to  guide  him  in  pitch-darkness? 
How  can  I  ever  be  worthy  of  my  friend?  What  should 
I  be  without  him?  How  can  I  get  on  if  he  should  die? 
Does  life  really  end  at  death?  What  is  it  all  for?  Of 
course  you  may  shove  such  questions  aside,  but  you 
will  never  be  wholly  happy  till  you  have  answered 
them.  They  are  everybody's  questions  and  they  all 
lead  straight  to  religion. 

Questions  that  search  us  come  up  most  often  when 
we  first  choose  our  work,  when  we  find  or  when  we 
lose  our  best  friend,  and  when  we  are  in  the  presence 
of  death. 

Here  is  an  incident  in  the  life  of  an  Englishman  on 
the  battlefield  of  France.  He  had  never  bothered 
much  about  religion  while  at  home,  but  "a,  man 
couldn't  sit  in  a  trench  hour  after  hour  and  day  after 
day  with  shells  whizzing  through  the  air  over  his 
head,  or  bursting  thunderously  ten  yards  from  him, 
without  trying  to  get  some  grip  of  his  mental  attitude 
towards  them.  He  could  not  see  his  comrades  killed 
and  mutilated  'without  in  some  way  defining  his  views 
on  life  and  death  and  duty  and  fate."*  Then  the  day 
came  when  this  man  was  badly  wounded  in  a  daylight 
charge.  He  lay  still  in  the  field,  sheltered  by  the  long 
grass,  fearful  of  death,  knowing  his  comrades  had 
retreated.  At  last  the  stars  came  out,  the  vast  stars 
that  made  everything  else  seem  small  and  trivial. 
He  felt  more  lonely  and  deserted  than  ever,  more 
like  a  worthless,  transitory  pigmy  under  the  cold 
eternal  stars.  But  his  thoughts  went  on.  "I  am 
more  than  the  stars  for  I  can  suffer  and  I  know  my 
littleness.  There  is  that  in  me  which  is  not  in  the 
stars  unless  God  is  every^vhere." 

"  'God!'    he  whispered  softly,   'God  everywhere!' 

*  From  A  Stvdent  in  Arma,    by  Donald    Hankey,    E.    P.     Dutton, 
p.  133. 


92  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Then  into  his  tired  brain  came  a  new  phrase — '  Under- 
neath are  the  everlasting  arms.'  "  Over  and  over  he 
haK  chanted  the  words,  till,  hours  later,  the  moon 
sank  and  his  companions  could  steal  out  in  the  dark- 
ness and  carry  him  to  safety.  ''He  will  never  again 
be  sound  of  limb;  but  there  is  in  his  memory  and  in 
his  heart  that  which  may  make  him  a  stanch  fighter 
in  other  fields.  He  has  learnt  a  new  way  of  prayer, 
and  a  courage  that  is  born  of  faith  well  founded. ''  * 

*From   A    Student  in   Arms,    by   Donald    Hankey,    E.  P.  Button, 
p.  152. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

INTERESTS   AS   SOURCES   OF   HEALTH   AND 
HAPPINESS 

Some  years  ago  a  doctor  called  to  see  a  young 
medical  student  and  found  him  with  high  fever  and 
severe  rheumatism.  "Progressive  arthritis,"  thought 
the  doctor,  ''the  lad  will  be  permanently  crippled." 
"You  must  do  no  work  at  all,"  he  said  aloud.  "Take 
a  complete  rest.  Get  out  in  the  country  if  possible 
and  eat  a  lot  of  nourishing  food."  Excellent  and 
useless  advice  was  this,  as  the  doctor  soon  saw.  The 
bo}'  was  working  his  waj"  thi'ough  the  school.  He 
could  not  afford  cream  and  oil  or  country  life.  Still 
less  could  he  buy  rest  for  his  body  or  soul  when  his 
mind  was  restlessh'  pacing  the  future.  The  student 
grew  decidedly  worse.  Next  time  the  doctor  came 
he  gave  very  different  advice.  "Get  up  and  go  back 
to  j'our  laboratory  work  in  the  Medical  School.  Try 
it  and  see  if  you  can  stand  it.  I'll  look  out  for  your 
tuition  fee."  The  work  was  difficult  enough  to  the 
crippled,  muscleless  hands  of  the  student,  but  under 
its  influence  he  grew  astonishingly  better.  As  he 
forgot  himself  in  his  tasks,  his  body,  too,  seemed  to 
drop  its  burden.  His  hands  and  feet  were  crippled 
for  life.  He  had  to  use  crutches  and  at  times  he  had 
to  be  carried  about.  The  written  examination  at 
the  end  of  the  year  appalled  him.  "How  can  I  write 
decently  with  hands  like  these?"  "Fire  ahead!" 
answered  the  doctor,  laconically.  * '  You'll  get  through." 
And  he  did. 

But  the  end  of  the  Medical  School  meant  only  a 


94  Our  Part  in  the  World 

far  more  difficult  beginning.  How  could  he  practice 
medicine?  He  applied  first  for  a  place  so  disagree- 
able that  nobody  coveted  it,  an  ill-paid  position  at 
a  local  almshouse  in  an  out-of-the-way  town  among 
sick,  old  and  feeble-minded  paupers.  There  he  stayed 
for  several  years,  making  a  life  out  of  it  as  well  as  a 
living.  When  he  had  saved  a  little  money  he  hired 
a  horse  and  buggy  and  set  up  a  small  private  practice 
in  the  country.  Gradually  he  grew  more  crippled; 
he  had  to  be  lifted  into  his  buggy  and  out  again  on 
his  round  of  visits,  but  surely  he  helped  his  patients 
the  more  because  they  saw  that  he  was  often  far  more 
ill  than  those  he  went  to  serve.  Year  by  year  he  has 
won  his  way  into  the  hearts  of  his  patients  and  into 
a  knowledge  of  how  to  mitigate  and  partially  control 
for  others  the  disease  that  had  failed  to  master  his 
dauntless  spirit.  His  interest  has  held  him  in  health 
and  happiness. 

Another  such  case  is  that  of  a  Canadian  woman 
who  came,  anxious  and  discouraged,  to  a  Boston 
hospital  to  learn  whether  the  trouble  with  her  legs 
was  curable.  The  verdict  was  against  her;  both  legs 
had  to  be  cut  off  above  the  knees.  As  she  lay  in  the 
hospital,  inactive,  she  thought  not  of  herself  but  about 
all  the  convalescents  around  her.  How  much  they 
needed  something  to  do  to  occupy  their  time!  As 
soon  as  she  was  able,  she  started  knitting  classes. 
When  she  recovered  she  began  clearly  and  valiantly 
to  plan  her  own  future.  With  a  little  help  she  would 
set  up  a  small  dressmaking  shop.  ''I  can  paddle 
round  and  get  at  the  bottom  of  skirts  beautifully," 
was  her  judgment,  ''and  I  can  always  hop  on  a  chair 
to  fit  the  shoulders."  When,  with  the  help  of  friends, 
her  work  succeeded,  she  broached  her  secret  ideal. 
She  wanted  to  enlarge  her  little  shop  and  take  in 
other  cripples  whom  she  would  teach  and  employ  as 


Interests  as  Sources  of  Health  and  Happiness      95 

assistants.  So  there  she  is  still,  full  of  ambition, 
faith,  and  cheer,  carrying  out  her  special  mission. 

It  is  true  of  each  of  us,  as  of  these  two,  that  on  the 
choice  and  pursuit  of  our  main  interest  depends  very 
largely  our  health,  our  happiness  and  our  serviceable- 
ness. 

Indeed,  interests  are  sources  of  health  largely  be- 
cause they  are  sources  of  happiness.  Happiness  is  a 
shy  bird :  it  ducks  under  when  you  look  for  it  or  at  it. 
It  surprises  you  by  rising  to  the  surface  when  you  have 
forgotten  both  it  and  yourself  in  your  work.  Even  the 
word  "interest"  carries  this  message.  Happy  people 
are  interested,  that  is,  they  are,  in  our  accurate  slang, 
"in  it"  {iiiter  esse);  unhappy  people  are  almost  inva- 
riably those  who  are  "out  of  it."  I  knew  once  a  self- 
distrustful,  unhappy  woman,  whose  husband's  busi- 
ness took  him  to  a  flourishing  town  in  the  middle  West. 
She  came  of  a  large  family  and  felt  stranded  and  alone, 
away  from  old  and  familiar  surroundings.  She  tried 
to  be  conscientious,  she  took  good  care  of  her  house  and 
her  daughter,  but  she  was  lonely  and  self-conscious 
and  did  not  readily  make  friends.  When,  one  winter, 
she  was  asked  to  join  a  class  in  folk-dancing,  she  began 
half-heartedly,  but  came  back  from  the  first  lesson 
with  her  eyes  shining.  "I  feel  like  a  new  being,"  she 
told  her  husband.  "I  am  going  to  learn  folk-dancing 
so  thoroughly  that  I  can  teach  it,  and  do  you  know 
who  will  be  my  first  pupils?  All  the  sewing  women 
and  milliners  in  this  town.  They  sit  stock-still  all  day 
long  and  they  must  need  some  fun  and  exercise." 

Her  first  plan  was  not  only  carried  out,  but  it  grew, 
as  all  good  plans  do.  Before  many  years  she  was 
giving  folk-dancing  lessons  to  teachers,  old  and  young, 
to  newsboys,  to  firemen,  and  to  the  little  colony  of 
French-Canadian  women  who  worked  in  the  mills. 
Once  every  year  a  dance  which  united  all  the  classes 


96  Our  Part  in  the  World 

was  held  in  the  largest  hall  the  town  contained.  No 
question  of  class  or  dress  or  fortune  was  there.  Who- 
ever could  dance  best  was  most  applauded.  So  from 
class  to  class  my  friend  goes  with  shining  eyes  of  hap- 
piness, and  all  she  says  when  gratitude  falls  upon  her 
is,  ''Well,  if  you've  had  a  good  time  dancing,  go  and 
teach  someone  else." 

This  is  of  course  the  missionary  spirit,  nothing  less. 
It  is  the  desire  to  give  the  best  we  know  to  all  those 
we  can  reach,  to  shout  the  good  news  to  all  who  will 
listen.  What  is  the  best  news  in  all  history?  Surely 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  that  God  is  our  loving  Father,  that 
to  do  His  will  is  meat  and  drink,  that  neither  life  nor 
death  can  separate  us  from  His  love.  Wherever  or 
however  we  can  spread  this  gospel,  happy  are  we. 
Dr.  Grenfell,  of  whom  I  spoke  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
says  that  his  hardest  experience  in  life  is  to  be  unable 
to  get  his  great  secret — the  infinite  value  of  rehgion — 
into  the  hearts  of  men.  This  powerlessness  torments 
him.    He  finds  the  strain  appalling. 

Yet  Dr.  Grenfell  need  not  fear.  His  great  secret  is 
known.  For  what  makes  anyone  believe  another's 
truth?  Very  little  his  arguments,  very  much  his  life. 
It  is  Dr.  Grenfell' s  life  that  is  swiftly  spreading  his 
faith. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
SPECIAL  CHOICES 

I  ONCE  knew  a  boy  who  from  the  age  of  two  up 
showed  scientific  interest.  He  could  not  walk  across 
a  bridge  without  peering  underneath  to  see  how  it  was 
constructed.  His  toys  interested  him  far  less  than 
the  things  he  could  make.  Surrounded  by  cardboard, 
pins  and  rubber  bands,  he  spent  hours  in  planning  new 
machinery.  While  in  his  early  teens,  he  sent  to  the 
United  States  Patent  Office  at  Washington  a  valuable 
device  for  the  automatic  coupling  of  freight  cars.  At 
eighteen  he  entered  the  scientific  school  at  Harvard, 
graduated  in  mechanical  engineering,  worked  in  a 
machine  shop  to  get  practical  training,  and  when  the 
war  with  Germany  broke  out  was  equipped  to  offer 
his  services  as  an  expert  engineer.  So  clear  a  choice 
of  interests  is  rare;  most  of  us  have  to  feel  our  way 
toward  happiness  and  service. 

We  often  begin  by  facing  clearly  what  we  do 
not  want.  Mathematics,  banking,  compiling  a  dic- 
tionary, bricklaying,  accounting,  tunneling,  shipbuild- 
ing, will  not  appeal  to  many  girls,  although  I  know  of 
one  who  is  an  expert  naval  architect,  and  of  another 
who  has  been  most  successful  in  the  Woman's  Depart- 
ment of  a  stockbroker's  office.  Care  of  children,  kin- 
dergarten teaching,  millinery,  dressmaking,  will  be 
rejected  by  most  boys,  although  the  heads  of  the  great 
Parisian  firms  of  dressmaking  are  usually  men.  Men 
and  women  differ  in  their  native  tastes;  for  that 
reason  among  many  others  they  need  each  other 
and  should  honor  each  other  the  more.   In  the  army 


98  Our  Part  in  the  World 

women  are  sorely  needed  as  nurses,  for  few  men  keep, 
a.s  women  do,  a  spirit  of  tenderness,  gaiety  and  pa- 
tience under  the  routine  of  nursing.  Few  women 
would  be  capable  of  steering  or  handling  a  transat- 
lantic liner  at  sea.  They  lack  the  interest  and  power 
in  navigation  that  men  possess. 

What  are  the  best  interests?  Those  that  are  your 
own,  in  which  you  can  serve  God  in  a  special  way; 
and  this  means  those  interests  into  which  you  can  put 
your  whole  heart.  Now  you  can  never  quite  put  your 
whole  self  into  an  interest  that  is  mean  or  harmful. 
Something  always  nags  at  your  conscience,  and  part 
of  your  effort  goes  into  trying  not  to  notice  the  harm 
you  are  doing. 

Interests  that  are  fruitful  are  naturally  better  than 
time-consuming  occupations  that  leave  no  fruit.  It 
would  be  of  little  value  to  count  how  many  times 
Shakespeare  used  the  word  "the";  it  might  be  very 
enhghtening  to  find  how  often  he  used  the  word  "re- 
ligion." 

Fruitfulness  in  an  interest  means  growth.  The 
best  interests  do  not  narrow  us.  They  make  us  more 
alive  to  other  interests  and  they  keep  spreading  to  new 
fields.  A  doctor  may  start  with  an  interest  in  science, 
but  if  he  is  a  good  doctor  he  will  develop  interest  in 
people;  interest  in  industrial  diseases  that  come  from 
wrong  conditions  of  work;  interest  in  the  health  that 
comes  from  the  right  work;  interest  in  health  insurance; 
and  so  on  and  on  till  the  end  of  his  life. 

How  shall  we  find  our  own  best  interests? 

One  test  is  this:  For  our  special  interest  we  shall  be 
ready  to  go  through  drudgery  and  count  it  gain.  Per- 
haps this  year  you  are  both  learning  Latin  and  learn- 
ing to  play  basket-ball.  There  is  drudgery  in  each. 
But  why  does  one  seem  to  you  to  have  more  drudgery 
than  the  other? 


Special  Choices  99 

A  second  test  is  this:  our  own  best  interest  lights 
us  up  and  makes  us  eager.  Does  learning  a  Schubert 
sonata  bore  you,  or  does  it  seem  worth  while?  Does 
camp-cooking  or  work  in  electric  wiring  find  you  dull 
or  alert? 

Many  of  you,  of  course,  will  feel  that  you  do  not 
know  what  your  interests  are.  Take  every  chance 
then  of  trying  out  for  a  few  weeks  or  months  a  piece 
of  work  that  appeals  to  you.  I  know  a  boy  of  fifteen 
who  passed  his  summer  in  a  doctor's  office  just  to 
experiment  with  that  kind  of  work  before  deciding 
whether  to  take  the  long  and  severe  training  of  a 
medical  school.  Continuation  schools  and  college  ex- 
tension work  now  offer  to  boys  and  girls  first-rate 
chances  to  test  their  interests.  And,  given  interest, 
nobody  needs  to  depend  upon  great  originality  or 
talent  to  succeed;  perseverance,  thoroughness,  sym- 
pathy and  good  sense  are  far  more  needed. 

WTien  you  try  to  do  anything  perfectly  you  will 
come  up  hard  against  an  experience  well  known  to 
all  workers.  You  will  find  every  fault  in  your  char- 
acter warring  against  you;  you  will  find  that  your 
only  chance  of  complete  success  lies  in  overcoming 
your  faults.  If  you  are  naturally  untidy  or  unpunct- 
ual,  you  may  hardly  have  realized  it  when  someone 
picked  up  your  things  or  waited  till  you  came;  but  an 
employer  does  not  do  that  for  long.  If  you  have  let 
yourself  be  selfish,  opinionated,  or  moody,  it  will  soon 
tell  against  you  in  your  work,  as  a  menacing  bunker 
seems  to  say  to  the  golf-player,  ''Get  over  me  if  you 
can,  or  lose  the  game."  Sin  is  defeating.  You  want 
popularity.  Do  you  get  it  by  rudeness,  quick  temper, 
self-seeking?  You  want  to  be  a  great  football  player. 
Does  laziness,  disobedience,  or  fear  help  you?  You 
want  to  be  a  trained  nurse.  Can  you  succeed  if  you 
are    slack,    or    unsympathetic?     You    would    like    to 


100  Our  Part  in  the  World 

have  a  reputation  for  good  fellowship.  "Will  stinginess, 
meanness,  self-centeredness  give  that  impression? 
No;  every  fault  throws  its  dark  shadow  on  the  bed  of 
flowers  we  are  trying  to  grow.  We  can't  indulge 
ourselves  in  faults  of  any  kind,  any  more  than  we  can 
indulge  in  liquor,  without  the  result  soon  showing  in 
the  defeat  of  what  we  most  want. 

"Why  are  interests  of  such  importance?  Because,  like 
instruments,  we  are  not  ourselves  till  we  are  active  in 
helpful  ways.  The  pent-up,  unused  energy  of  our 
natures  will  wear  us  out  as  a  millstone  in  motion  will 
wear  itself  to  pieces  unless  it  has  something  to  grind. 
More  than  this  is  true.  We  are  none  of  us  truly  our- 
selves until  we  go  beyond  ourselves  in  work  for  our 
family,  our  friends,  our  nation,  and  other  loved  nations, 
and,  through  them  all,  for  God.  Every  human  being 
needs  someone  to  love  and  work  for.  Look  for  eager, 
shining,  happy  faces  and  you  will  find  them  among 
doctors,  nurses,  social  workers,  generous  statesmen, 
devoted  parents;  not  among  rich  misers,  political 
grafters,  or  domineering  rulers. 

As  we  delve  deeper  we  find  that  in  doing  our  special 
part,  we  serve  God,  each  in  his  own  way.  Sometimes 
I  am  amazed  that  God  could  make  so  many  of  us  and 
remember  all  His  children.  Why  so  many?  What 
is  the  use  of  all  of  us?  "God  knows,"  we  say.  That 
is  the  only  true  answer, — God  knows;  and  we  shall 
begin  to  find  out  of  what  use  we  are  when  we  work 
just  as  hard  and  as  clear-sightedly  as  we  can  at  our 
special  task.  If  you  can  do  something  worth  doing, 
do  it  with  all  your  will  and  do  it  in  your  own 
way,  you  will  see,  or  begin  to  see,  that  there  is  in 
the  universe  a  place  where  you,  and  you  only,  are 
needed  now  and  forever. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
UNIVERSAL  SERVICE 

During  our  time  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  used,  one  after  another,  certain  catchwords. 
Very  interesting  these  catchwords  are.  Some  ten 
years  ago  the  first  words  any  foreigner  heard,  and 
heard  so  often  that  he  learned  them  without  even 
knowing  their  meaning,  were  "All  right."  They  ex- 
pressed our  American  good  nature  and  contentment 
most  pleasantly.  But  then  came  criticism  of  our  rail- 
roads and  of  our  factories.  A  new  word  sprang  up, 
''Efficiency,"  and  a  new  set  of  business  men  sprang 
into  being  called  ''efficiency  experts."  To  do  every- 
thing up  to  the  mark  is,  of  course,  a  good  idea,  pro- 
vided that  your  mark  is  worth  hitting.  That  is  the 
trouble  with  efficiency.  It  does  not  say  what  it  is  all 
for.  You  can  cultivate  the  efficient  pickpocket  and 
the  expert  liar  or  spy  by  just  the  same  methods  that 
you  cultivate  the  efficient  teacher  or  the  efficient 
banker. 

The  cry  of  efficiency  languished  after  the  great  war 
broke  out  in  Europe  in  August,  1914.  It  looked  then 
as  if  some  people  had  been  efficient  for  wrong  ends. 
Another  phrase  much  used,  shortly  before  that  time, 
was  the  call  ''Safety  First,"  of  which  some  of  us  were 
very  fond.  "Watch  your  step"  and  "Safety  first" 
are  said  to  have  saved  many  headlong  lives.  Ameri- 
cans are  proverbially  careless,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  "Safety  first"  taught  for  a  time  a  needed  lesson. 
It  is  ridiculous  to  burn  your  house  to  roast  your  pig; 
it  is  equally  foohsh  to  break  your  leg  in  order  to  get 


102  Our  Part  in  the  World 

home  in  time  for  a  roast-pork  dinner.  But  that  im- 
pelling word  ''First"  came  after  the  word  ''Safety." 
The  motto  "Safety  before  speed"  would  in  most  cases 
have  been  right,  but  "Safety  First,"  is  impossible  to 
the  sons  of  a  nation  inspired  by  Lincoln.  So  we  began 
to  drop  "Safety  First "  after  the  great  war  broke  out  and 
to  adopt  as  our  own  the  words  of  the  Boy  Scouts  of 
America,  "Be  prepared."  But  these  words  still  left 
darkness  upon  the  face  of  any  special  duty.  Be  pre- 
pared— for  what?  Preparedness  for  anything  is  a 
somewhat  confusing  idea.  You  can  prepare  for  a  hot 
day,  or  an  icy  day,  a  thunderstorm,  an  earthquake, 
a  fire,  a  drought,  a  host  of  locusts,  or  a  pestilence,  a 
marriage,  or  an  examination  in  algebra,  but  to  attempt 
to  prepare  for  everything  at  once  is  apt  to  make  one's 
head  spin.  Preparedness  was  a  catchword  that  meant 
well;  but  it  spurred  on  the  rider  without  telling  him 
where  to  go. 

At  last  in  April,  1917,  came  with  the  President's 
message  a  new  phrase  that  expressed  a  great  and  clear 
ideal, — "Universal  selective  service."  It  meant  that 
everyone  without  exception  must  help  in  the  way 
for  which  each  is  best  fitted.  This  seems  to  me  part 
of  the  plan  for  which  God  sent  us  into  the  world  and 
keeps  us  here.  We  are  worth  while  from  now  on  to  eter- 
nity, if  we  give  constantly  of  our  unique  best.  Universal 
service  must  be  given  by  each  in  his  own  way.  You  would 
not  expect  policemen  to  wheel  perambulators,  or  nurse- 
maids to  work  in  mines;  but  there  is  something  some- 
where for  which  each  of  us  is  needed.  How  about 
those  not  able  to  work, — the  sick,  the  aged,  the  babies? 
Perhaps  they  are  the  most  needed  of  all,  although  they 
don't  know  they  are  of  any  use.  "What  is  baby  doing 
now?"  I  asked  a  proud  father  in  war-time.  "Oh! 
Billy's  doing  the  best  thing  in  the  world.  He  makes 
so  many  jokes  that  he  keeps  every  one  of  us  from  get- 


Universal  Service  103 

ting  depressed  for  a  minute."  And  as  for  many  of  the 
old,  their  spirit  is  often  more  clear-sighted,  more  de- 
voted, than  om-s.  Only  to-day  a  white-haired  woman 
who  was  building  my  fire  burst  out,  ''Oh!  I  wish 
they'd  send  me  to  the  war,  to  help.  I'd  just  love  to 
wait  on  those  poor,  brave  men  from  morning  to  night. 
They've  suffered  so  much,  and  I  say  I'm  half  a  sol- 
dier myself,  for  my  husband  was  in  the  Civil  War." 
And  I  doubt  not  that  her  warm,  trained  and  endless 
devotion  would  assuage  the  pain  of  many  a  wounded 
soldier. 

Universal  selective  service:  each  of  us  doing  his 
special  task.  It  is  a  great  ideal,  but  there  come  times 
when  a  greater  duty  calls  us.  ''SO  S."  The  wire- 
less telegraph  sounds  these  letters  through  the  air. 
What  do  they  mean?  We  may  interpret  them  to  mean : 
Suspend  other  service.  They  herald  a  need  greater 
than  all  others.  Sometimes  it  is  a  family  need.  A 
young  Jew  is  told  by  his  doctor  that  his  bride  has  con- 
sumption. "Would  Colorado  give  her  the  best  chance 
of  recovery?  How  soon  must  she  go?  Before  cold 
weather?  Well,  I  have  a  little  drygoods  business  just 
started,  but  I'll  sell  out  and  go  to  Colorado  in  a  month. 
I  can  work  in  the  mines  if  necessary."*  Suspend  other 
service.  There  he  was,  ready  to  go  down  into  darkness 
to  work  for  his  wife's  sake.  Her  need  came  first.  It 
was  an  S  0  S  call. 

Sometimes  the  call  is  sudden  and  short,  a  call  from 
your  neighborhood.  In  1915  a  fire  burned  down  part 
of  the  city  of  Salem.  Thousands  of  f  amihes  were  home- 
less. To  neighboring  towns  and  cities  came  the  call, 
SOS,  Suspend  other  service.  Open  wide  your  doors; 
pom*  your  time  and  your  money  freely  into  the  gap. 
Help  in  whatever  way  you  can  help  best, — by  cooking, 
by  organizing,  by  building  shelters,  by  caring  for  the 

*  Social  Service  and  the  Art  of  Healing,  by  Richard  C.  Cabot,  p.  7. 


104  Our  Part  in  the  World 

children.  Lift  the  fallen;  put  them,  as  we  say  graphic- 
ally, on  their  feet  again. 

Sometimes  it  is  the  call  of  your  nation,  misled  by 
false  politicians,  or  invaded  by  foes.  SOS,  Suspend 
other  service.  Leave  your  home  and  serve  in  the  Senate 
or  in  the  army.  The  place  does  not  matter  if  your 
country  needs  you. 

Whenever  the  call  comes  ringing  truly  it  is  a  call  to 
serve  God  through  serving  family,  friend,  neighbor,  or 
nation.  ''Leave  all  and  follow  me."  Suspend  other 
service.  The  early  disciples  to  whom  Jesus  spoke  did 
not  understand,  or  did  not  want  to  understand.  It  is 
giving  up  all  other  service  that  baffles  the  will.  "Lord, 
suffer  me  first  to  go  and  bury  my  father."  Jesus,  who 
looked  into  men's  souls  as  clearly  as  we  look  into  their 
eyes,  must  have  seen  in  these  words  an  excuse,  not  a 
reason, — a  kind  of  reserve  like  the  reserve  of  Ananias 
and  Sapphira  in  keeping  back  a  part  of  their  money. 
The  half-hearted  cannot  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  They  always  look  back  to  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  and  trip  because  they  are  looking  backward. 
It  was  not  that  Jesus  wanted  his  disciples  to  neglect 
their  families.  He  who  so  tenderly  put  his  mother 
into  the  care  of  John  could  not  do  that.  But  he  wanted 
to  make  sure  what  the  disciples  put  first.  ''Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  The  only 
universal  service  is  the  service  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
WAR  FOR  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

''There  is  a  peace  of  God  that  passe th  understand- 
ing; and  there  is  a  strife  of  God  which  passeth  under- 
standing no  less.  Apart  from  the  peace  of  God  the 
strife  of  God  has  neither  motive  nor  end;  apart  from 
the  strife,  peace  is  a  slumber  of  the  soul."*  Our  gener- 
ation has  heard  again  the  ruffle  of  drums,  the  shout 
of  military  coirunands,  the  bursting  of  shells.  In  1915, 
for  the  first  time  in  half  a  centurj^  men  all  over  this 
country  began  to  drill.  Women  began  to  work  for  the 
Red  Cross;  they  learned  to  plough  and  to  plant,  and 
made  ready  to  take  the  place  of  their  brothers.  In 
1917  we  entered  the  great  world  conflict. 

\Mien,  we  asked,  is  war  right?  James  W.  Gerard, 
our  Ambassador  to  Berlin,  gave  in  a  speech  after  his 
return  an  unforgettable  answer:  ''I  am  willing  to 
break  the  peace  if  only  by  so  doing  I  can  keep  the 
faith."  War,  then,  may  be  right  when  all  other  honor- 
able means  fail  to  preserv^e  faith  or  to  root  out  an 
intolerable  wrong. 

Lord  Asquith,  in  an  address  to  Parliament  in  relation 
to  the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war,  said 
the  motive  that  led  America  into  the  conflict  was 
''not  calculation  of  material  gains,  not  hope  of  terri- 
torial aggrandizement,  not  even  the  pricking  of  one 
of  those  so-called  points  of  honor  which  in  days  gone 
by  have  driven  nations,  as  they  used  to  drive  indi- 
\iduals,  to  the  dueling  ground.  It  was  the  constrain- 
ing  force   of   conscience   and   humanity,    growing   in 

♦From  An  Interim  Religion,  by  L.  P.  Jacka,  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1916. 


106  Our  Part  in  the  World 

strength  and  compulsive  authority  month  by  month. 
It  was  that  force  alone  which  brought  home  to  the 
great  democracy  overseas  the  momentous  truth  that 
they  were  standing  at  the  parting  of  the  ways."* 

To  enforce  peace,  to  hold  the  faith,  to  rescue  the  down- 
trodden, to  keep  children  safe  in  sunny  homes,  to  guard 
the  sanctity  of  women,  to  be  true  to  our  national  life: 
these,  then,  are  some  of  the  occasions  when,  as  a  last 
resort,  war  may  be  right.  But  we  must  always  say 
as  a  last  resort,  that  is,  after  all  honorable  means  have 
failed,  for  the  prevention  of  war,  like  the  prevention 
of  disease,  is  mainly  due  to  a  right  state  of  living  before 
the  crisis  comes. 

How  are  we  going  to  make  sure  that  there  will  never 
again  be  a  war  from  unworthy  motives?  First,  by 
straight  and  thorough  thinking  about  the  place  of 
war;  second,  by  action  to  increase  good  will.  Deep 
thinking  is  tough  work;  often  it  is  harder  than  the 
deep  ploughing  of  a  field  and  much  harder  than  shoul- 
dering a  gun.     But  it  is  equally  essential. 

Lincoln,  most  tender-hearted  of  men,  wrote  during 
the  Civil  War,  "If  God  wills  the  removal  of  a  great 
wrong  and  wills  also  that  we  of  the  North,  as  well  as 
you  of  the  South,  shall  pay  fairly  for  our  complicity 
in  that  wrong,  impartial  history  will  find  therein  new 
cause  to  attest  and  revere  the  justice  and  goodness  of 
God."t  That  is  the  word  of  a  steadfast  thinker.  See 
what  great  principles  he  has  worked  out.  First,  that 
slavery  is  an  intolerable  wrong;  then,  that  the  North 
as  weU  as  the  South  was  guilty  and  must  atone;  and 
lastly,  that  not  to  any  human  conqueror,  but  to  God 
alone  was  the  glory  due.  Lincoln  thought  and  thought 
again,  ploughing  deeper  each  time  into  the  meaning  of 

*  From  The  New  York  Times,  April,  1917. 

t  From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,   by   Ida    M.  Tarbell,    McClure, 
PhUlips  &  Co.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  220. 


War  for  Righteousness  107 

God's  will,  until  at  last  these  three  great  points  were 
clear  to  hiin.  Then,  because  he  saw  as  God  saw,  Lin- 
coln was  able  to  be  absolutely  forgiving  and  tender 
toward  the  South.  The  rebellious  States  were  to  him 
wandering  children.  He  want-ed  them  to  come  back 
into  the  Union  just  as  quickly  as  they  would.  "Find- 
ing themselves  safely  at  home,  it  would  be  utterly 
immaterial  whether  they  had  ever  been  abroad." 
Lincoln  spent  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which  he  was 
assassinated  in  urging  his  Cabinet  to  be  kind  and 
generous  to  the  defeated  South.  He  had  thought 
the  meaning  of  the  war  through. 

The  disease  of  war  comes  from  ill-will,  narrowness, 
and  selfishness  in  the  world.  We  must  then  act  to 
increase  good  will.  Jesus  was  no  believer  in  peace  at 
any  price;  but  he  knew  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was 
the  highest  good,  and  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  by  violence.  If  he  had  desired  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world,  desired  power,  desired  visible  success,  he 
might  have  been  driven  to  war.  There  have  been 
many  wars  for  these  ends.  But  while  Jesus  could  not 
have  engaged  in  such  a  war,  he  would,  I  think,  have 
believed  in  any  war  that  roots  out  evil  and  clears 
darkened  eyes.  Jesus  blessed  the  peacemakers,  not 
the  passive.  He  did  not  say,  with  Pilate,  I  wash  my 
hands  of  it,  but  "Love  ye  your  enemies  and  do  good." 
Jesus  put  one  thing  first:  do  the  will  of  God;  and 
second,  show  good  will  to  men.  God's  will  must 
always  be  done,  at  times,  if  necessary,  through  force, 
but  never  without  an  abiding  will  for  good  held  through 
force  and  gentleness  alike. 

In  January,  1916,  a  young  American,  Henry  Butters, 
who  was  serving  as  Second  Lieutenant  with  the 
British  Royal  Field  Artillery,  wrote  home  to  his 
parents:  "I  am  no  longer  untried.     Two  weeks'  action 


108  Our  Part  in  the  World 

in  a  great  battle  is  to  my  credit,  and  if  my  faith  in  the 
wisdom  of  my  course  or  my  enthusiasm  for  the  cause 
had  been  due  to  fail  it  would  have  done  so  during  that 
time.  But  it  has  only  become  stronger;  I  find  myself 
a  soldier  among  millions  of  others  in  the  great  allied 
armies  fighting  for  all  I  believe  right  and  civilized  and 
humane  against  a  power  which  is  evil  and  which 
tlireatens  the  existence  of  all  the  right  we  prize  and 
the  freedom  we  enjoy. 

"It  may  seem  to  you  that  for  me  this  is  all  quite 
uncalled  for,  that  it  can  only  mean  either  the  supreme 
sacrifice  for  nothing,  or  at  best  some  of  the  best  years 
of  my  life  wasted;  but  I  tell  you  that  not  only  am  I 
willing  to  give  my  life  to  this  enterprise  (for  that  is 
comparatively  easy  except  w^hen  I  think  of  you),  but 
that  I  firmly  believe — if  I  live  through  it  to  spend  a 
useful  lifetime  with  you — that  never  will  I  have  an 
opportunity  to  gain  so  much  honorable  advancement 
for  my  own  soul,  or  to  do  so  much  for  the  cause  of 
the  world's  progress,  as  I  have  here  daily,  defending 
the  liberty  that  mankind  has  so  far  gained  against  the 
attack  of  an  enemy  who  would  deprive  us  of  it  and 
set  the  world  back  some  centuries  if  he  could  have 
his  way. 

"I  think  less  of  myself  than  I  did,  less  of  the  heights 
of  personal  success  I  aspired  to  climb,  and  more  of 
the  service  that  each  of  us  must  render  in  payment 
for  the  right  to  live  and  by  virtue  of  which  only  we 
can  progress."* 

*  Reprinted  from   the   Boston   Herald,    September   29,    1916,    by   the 
American  Rights  League. 


CHAPTER   XXV 
THE   DISCIPLINES   OF   PEACE 

At  a  time  when  our  country  is  at  war  for  righteous- 
ness, it  is  our  part  to  offer  all  we  have  in  the  service  of 
our  nation,  ^^^len  peace  is  restored,  it  is  our  part 
in  the  world  to  make  sure  that  it  is  and  continues  to 
be  a  peace  worth  the  terrible  and  tragic  yet  glorious 
sacrifice. 

It  is  undeniable  that  war  can  bring  even  in  its  horrible 
train  much  that  is  of  supreme  good;  for  war  demands 
our  all  and  human  nature  when  it  is  called  on  to 
the  uttermost  answers  with  amazing  courage.  War 
brings  to  men  adventures  of  body  and  soul  and  union 
in  noble  comradeship;  patriotism  ceases  to  be  a 
word  and  becomes  a  quickening  spirit.  War  brings 
to  women  new  chances  for  self-sacrifice  and  for  wider 
service.  It  brings  to  all  of  us  who  are  worth  our 
salt  an  intenser  sense  of  responsibility.  But  these 
results  are  not  due  to  the  fact  of  war  as  such.  Our 
pioneer  ancestors,  brought  up  hard  against  the  stern 
realities  of  implacable  nature,  must  have  felt  an 
equal  demand  for  service,  and  for  sacrifice.  Even 
now,  though  on  a  small  scale  as  compared  with  a 
titanic  war,  the  fighting  of  a  famine  in  India,  of  a 
typhus  fever  epidemic  in  Serbia,  of  a  flood  on  the 
Mississippi  River,  will  bring  out  the  same  glad  and 
heroic  response  to  need.  But  war  is  like  a  gigantic 
searchlight  whose  blazing  eye  plays  upon  experience 
until  even  those  dim  of  vision  can  see.  War  is  life 
stretched  out  to  its  utmost,  tense,  high-strung.  No 
inch  of  slack  remains.     We  could  not  permanently 


110  Our  Part  in  the  World 

bear  such  strain.  We  do  not  really  desire  that  peace 
should  have  at  every  moment  the  quivering  intensity 
of  war,  but  if  democracy  is  worth  dying  for,  we  must 
make  it  worth  living  for,  we  must  be  on  the  alert,  even 
in  times  of  peace. 

The  celebrated  physician  and  novelist,  Dr.  Weir 
Mitchell  of  Philadelphia,  was  once  seated  in  the  front 
of  the  hall  at  a  conference  of  Boards  of  Trade  in 
New  York  City,  and  was  listening  to  speeches  on  the 
prosperity  of  America.  After  a  short  time  Dr.  Mitchell 
rose  hastily  and  left  the  room.  His  friend  followed  to 
inquire,  ''Are  you  ill?"  "Oh,  no,  indeed,"  answered 
Dr.  Mitchell.  "I  am  simply  weary  and  discouraged 
by  hearing  so  much  talk  about  billions  of  dollars  and 
nothing  about  literature,  nothing  about  science,  noth- 
ing about  religion." 

If  peace  is  going  to  link  itself  chiefly  to  prosperity, 
then  better  is  any  trial  that  stabs  us  wide  awake  and 
teaches  us  what  is  worth  while.  Jesus  said,  "You 
cannot  serve  God  and  mammon."  The  search  for 
money  without  any  ideal  back  of  it  makes  men  misers, 
or  makes  them  mercenary,  or  soft,  flabby  and  luxuri- 
ous. Money  in  the  service  of  God  may  build  a  cathe- 
dral whose  windows  flame  through  the  centuries,  may 
strew  flowers  across  a  wilderness,  may  save  the  blind 
from  despair,  heal  the  precious  sick,  give  the  seeker 
for  truth  his  needed  bread.  But  peace  must  never 
again  mean  the  search  for  money,  or  for  luxury  as  an 
end  in  itself. 

What,  then,  are  we  to  work  for  in  times  of  peace? 
Surely  for  the  holding  and  strengthening  of  those  things 
that  were  and  are  worth  dying  for, — loyalty  to  our 
pledges,  the  rescue  of  the  weak,  the  holiness  of  home 
life,  the  ideals  of  our  nation.  When  you  grow  old 
enough  you  will  take  part  in  some  of  these  ways, — • 
you   will    enter   political    service,    uphold    the   merit 


The  Disciplines  of  Peace  111 

system,  improve  factory  conditions,  help  children, 
give  all  negroes  a  chance  for  their  best  education, 
see  that  no  one  is  forced  to  over-long  labor,  care  for 
the  sick.  And  I  hope  and  believe  that  there  will 
come  in  your  day  a  time  when  each  of  you  will  be 
definitely  trained  to  help  and  to  understand  America. 

Some  years  ago  Professor  William  James  was  writing 
on  the  possible  time  when  war  should  be  no  more.  We 
need  something,  he  said,  to  make  us  hardy,  fearless  of 
hardship,  resolute,  devoted,  loyal  in  danger  to  our 
nation,  for  human  life  with  no  use  for  hardihood  would 
be  contemptible.  War  makes  these  great  qualities 
leap  out,  but  we  could  not  for  a  second  ask  for  the 
scourge  of  war  in  order  to  improve  our  characters.  The 
sacrifice  which  war  teaches  men  to  lay  down  on  the 
altar,  we  must  learn  to  make  in  time  of  peace.  War  is 
vivid,  is  exacting,  is  relentless  in  its  tests  of  character. 
War's  demand  is,  "Leave  all  and  follow  me."  But  it 
is  possible  to  be  a  soldier  of  the  Lord,  a  servant  of 
the  Lord,  a  prisoner  of  the  Lord,  without  blood- 
shed. A  great  and  growing  nation  needs  every  citizen 
to  fight  against  the  forces  of  nature,  to  control  famine,, 
flood  and  disease,  to  fight  against  evil  in  high  places. 

WTiat  is  it  especially  that  war  brings  out  in  men  and 
women?  jMost  of  all  a  disciplined  will.  Discipline  is 
the  power  of  self-control  that  enables  a  man  to  do 
what  he  means  to  do  accurately  and  unflinchingly 
whether  he  is  afraid  or  not.  But  peace  has  its 
disciplines  as  well  as  war.  It  takes  a  disciplined  will 
to  speak  up  in  public  on  the  unpopular  side  and  say 
exactly  what  you  think  in  a  tactful  way.  It  requires 
a  disciplined  will  to  obey  an  order  in  a  football  game 
instantly  and  intelligently.  It  takes  a  disciplined  will 
to  do  your  full  and  difficult  share  in  an  emergency  and 
never  mention  the  fact.  It  takes  a  disciplined  will  to 
stick  to  your  job  to  the  end  when  you  feel  like  shirk- 


112  Our  Part  in  the  World 

ing.  It  requires  a  disciplined  will  to  get  on  happily 
and  successfully  with  what  Kipling  calls  a  diversity 
of  creatures,  that  is,  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men,  never  losing  your  own  point  of  view  and  never 
being  baffled  by  theirs. 

Firemen  may  any  day  require  and  exercise  the  dis- 
cipline that  we  associate  with  war,  and  often  a  better 
because  a  more  intelligent  kind  of  discipline.  Here 
is  an  incident  told  by  Jacob  Riis  of  a  fire-insurance 
patrol  man.  Sergeant  Vaughan.  In  February,  1892, 
the  Hotel  Royal  in  New  York  took  fire.  The  whole 
five-story  building  blazed  from  top  to  bottom.  As 
so  often  happens,  the  elevator  shaft,  round  which  the 
stairway  ran,  made  a  marvelously  good  chimney  for 
the  flames,  and  both  stairs  and  elevator  were  unus- 
able. Men  and  women  jumped  wildly  or  hung  out- 
stretched from  windows.  Sergeant  Vaughan  darted 
up  the  steps  and  stairway  of  an  adjoining  house, 
leaned  out  of  the  window  (while  another  fireman  held 
one  of  his  legs),  grabbed  some  electric  wires  for  support 
and  let  three  men  and  a  woman  pass  over  his  body  to 
safety,  while  he  steadied  them  with  his  free  hand. 
Immediately  afterward,  as  he  climbed  up  to  the  roof, 
he  saw  a  man  standing  in  a  fifth-story  window,  with 
the  paved  courtyard  sixty  feet  below  and  the  flames 
approaching.  Vaughan  thought  of  only  one  possible 
way  to  save  him.  He  got  four  of  his  men  to  sit  firmly 
on  his  legs  while  he  swung  across  to  where  the  man 
stood.  ' '  Jump ! "  commanded  Vaughan.  The  stranger 
jumped  and  caught  the  Sergeant's  wrists.  "Now 
hoist!"  shouted  Vaughan  to  his  men  on  the  roof. 
They  tugged  furiously  but  absolutely  without  effect. 
The  smoke  grew  denser,  the  flames  burnt  the  Ser- 
geant's hair.  "Possibly  I  can  swing  the  man  up,"  he 
thought,  and  with  terrific  resolve  and  energy,  he  swung 
the  man  like  a  pendulum  higher  and  higher  till  his 


The  Disciplines  of  Peace  113 

coat  was  grabbed  by  the  men  on  the  roof.  Then, 
reheved  by  the  weight  of  two  hundred  pounds,  his 
firemen  rescued  their  sergeant,  just  in  time.  He  was 
badly  exhausted.  It  was  two  months  before  he  could 
work  again.  Naturally  he  was  made  much  of,  but  he 
did  not  make  much  of  his  own  exploit.  He  had  ac- 
quired discipline,  and  to  do  the  right  act  seemed  to 
him  natural  and  inevitable,  undeserving  of  praise. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
THE  FIGHT  AGAINST  DISEASE 

Some  years  ago  I  met  an  Englishwoman  who  told 
me  of  an  experience  I  think  I  shall  never  forget.  She 
was  in  Japan  at  the  time  of  cherry  blossoms,  a  date 
that  the  flower-lo\dng  Japanese  keep  as  a  kind  of  fes- 
tival. The  blossoms  were  said  to  be  especially  beauti- 
ful at  a  certain  temple  near  Kioto  and  there  she  drove 
on  a  shining  day  of  spring.  Her  first  glimpse  was 
enchanting.  The  sky  back  of  the  temple  wall  was  a 
gleaming  blue  and  the  blossoming  trees  were  cov- 
ered with  rosy  petals  caught  and  clustered  in  the  air. 
Almost  dazzled,  she  looked  down  for  a  minute.  At 
her  feet  was  a  sight  shocking  beyond  words.  A  group 
of  lepers  in  all  stages  of  disease  had  crawled  out  to  the 
temple  and  were  lying  or  kneeling  at  its  base,  moaning 
for  help.  Some  of  us,  I  suppose,  would  have  told  the 
driver  to  turn  right  round  and  drive  home.  Others 
might  have  stopped  long  enough  to  put  some  money 
in  the  outstretched  hands  of  the  lepers.  This  English- 
woman did  neither.  She  then  and  there  resolved  to 
give  up  her  life  to  helping  the  lepers.  She  had  some 
money;  she  was  free  from  immediate  family  claims; 
being  the  daughter  of  a  missionary,  she  was  accustomed 
to  strenuous,  unremitting  service. 

She  went  back  to  the  city  and  studied  the  condition 
of  lepers  in  Japan.  She  found  that  not  only  were 
there  no  proper  hospitals,  but  that  lepers  were  treated 
as  outcasts  cursed  of  God,  and  destined  to  perdition. 
The  situation  became  clear  to  her.  Whether  or  not 
their  disease  could  be  cured,  the  lepers  should  be  ten- 


The  Fight  Against  Disease  115 

derly  cared  for,  protected,  believed  in,  and  made  to 
know  the  love  of  Christ.  Since  that  day  her  dream 
has  been  largely  fulfilled,  and  as  she  told  us  of  her  new 
hospital,  of  the  lepers  happily  at  work,  of  a  possible 
cure  in  sight,  many  of  us  asked,  in  wonder,  "And  you, 
how  have  you  stood  these  shocking  sights  and  this 
exposure  to  disease  during  these  eleven  years? "  ''Oh," 
she  answered,  "there  is  little  danger  of  catching  the 
disease  if  one  is  careful."  And  as  for  the  deformities, 
she  and  the  lepers  sometimes  laughed  together  over 
them,  for  the  spirit  of  rejoicing  in  the  Lord  was  among 
them.  Christ  had  healed  lepers;  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
had  overcome  his  loathing  and  taken  a  leper  in  his 
arms.     Why  not  she? 

I  suppose  the  greatest  thing  this  Englishwoman  has 
done  is  to  bring  the  spirit  of  Christianity  to  those  out- 
cast people,  and  perhaps  the  next  best  thing  is  that 
she  has  helped  to  root  out  the  idea  that  such  disease  is 
a  punishment  from  God  and  so  not  to  be  opposed,  and 
to  plant  the  idea  that  God  is  especially  eager  to  help, 
not  so  much  those  who  help  themselves,  as  those  who 
help  others. 

We  in  our  time  are  going  to  be  needed  to  fight  against 
disease,  as  well  as  to  find  ways  for  those  handicapped 
in  war  to  earn  a  living.  How  can  we  help?  Think 
for  a  moment  of  some  of  the  contributing  causes  of 
disease.  Some  diseases  are  due  to  wrong  ways  of 
living.  Now,  people  may  live  wrongly  through  ig- 
norance or  thi'ough  sin.  The  life  of  Dr.  Edward 
Trudeau,  who  is  famous  for  his  sanitarium  for  tuber- 
culosis in  the  Adirondacks,  gives  a  clear  example  of 
illness  caused  by  lack  of  knowledge.  Dr.  Trudeau 
had,  as  a  young  man,  nursed  his  tubercular  brother. 
At  that  time  all  doctors  advised  that  every  window 
in  a  sick  room  should  be  closed,  day  and  night. 
Dr.   Trudeau  carried  out  this  requirement  conscien- 


116  Our  Part  in  the  World 

tiously.  The  more  ill  his  brother  grew  the  tighter 
were  the  windows  closed.  No  one  thought  of  telling 
Dr.  Trudeau  to  take  any  precautions  against  infection. 
He  caught  the  disease,  suffered  from  fever,  and- was 
told  to  exercise,  thereby  exhausting  his  strength. 
Weak  and  emaciated  he  came  at  last  to  Saranac  Lake 
to  have  a  little  pleasure  before  he  died.  He  passed  the 
days  flat  in  a  canoe,  his  devoted  guide  paddling.  Little 
by  little  he  realized  that  air  was  good,  not  evil,  in  such 
illness.  He  grew  daily  stronger.  Then,  lifting  him- 
self above  the  tragedy  of  his  wrecked  career,  he  began 
to  help  others.  He  has  taught  us  that  tuberculosis  in  its 
early  stages  can  be  arrested  by  sunshine  and  air.  We 
must  spread  the  news  especially  among  the  foreign- 
ers in  our  midst.  France  is  a  prey  to  the  lack  of  this 
knowledge.  Ireland  and  Italy  are  only  beginning  to 
learn  it.  Most  foreigners  who  come  here  are  afraid 
of  air  and  especially  afraid  of  night  air.  Such  ignorance 
can  be  overcome. 

Other  diseases  are  due  directly  to  wrongdoing.  Sev- 
eral are  closely  linked  with  alcoholism,  and  in  many 
diseases  the  drinker's  past  weakness  in  taking  alcohol 
means  that  his  chance  of  recovery  is  lessened.  Often 
his  will  is  so  slack  that  he  does  not  resist  the  tempta- 
tion that  brings  disease.  Join  the  fight  against  alco- 
hol. It  is  estimated  by  Dr.  Alonzo  Taylor  of  Phila- 
delphia that  the  grain  and  sugar  now  put  into  intoxi- 
cating drinks  would  give  seven  million  men  full  rations 
for  a  year.  And  would  it  not  also  make  seven  million 
women  and  children  happier  and  safer,  and  their  hus- 
bands earners  instead  of  parasites?  Spread  the  truth 
about  alcohol  without  a  tinge  of  exaggeration.  Truth 
is  strong  in  its  own  strength,  and  its  color  glows  with- 
out artificial  dyeing. 

For  the  prevention  and  cure  of  disease  many  scien- 
tists are  working  with  unquenchable  zeal,   throwing 


The  Fight  Against  Disease  117 

away  most  of  their  experiments  as  failures,  abandoning 
pet  hypotheses,  keeping  unweariedly  on.  Few  can 
do  such  work,  but  all  can  honor  it  by  an  attitude  of 
unquenchable  zeal  toward  their  own  work  whatever 
it  may  be.  Typhoid  fever,  hydrophobia,  lockjaw, 
diphtheria,  yellow  fever,  malaria,  typhus  fever  and 
small-pox  are  now  almost  wholly  under  control  because 
of  the  patient  labore  of  scientists.  What  a  record  is 
this  of  lives  saved! 

Great  as  is  the  conquest  of  disease  made  by  man, 
it  is  easy  for  him  to  take  too  much  credit  to  himself. 
The  forces  of  nature  in  the  cure  and  prevention  of  dis- 
ease are  far  greater  than  most  of  us  realize.  Sleep  is 
the  gi'eat  upbuilder  of  health.  Its  sheltering  arms 
about  us,  repairing  the  tissues  broken  by  our  restless 
labor  and  useless  worry,  are  like  those  of  a  protecting 
father.  "He  giveth  unto  His  beloved  in  sleep,"  the 
Bible  says.*  It  is  true  in  more  meanings  than  one. 
The  same  tender,  invisible  care  that  renews  the  earth 
reaches  out  to  refresh  us  and  remake  us  in  our  sleep. 
In  the  presence  of  light,  the  restorer  of  health,  physi- 
cians find  less  use  for  drugs  and  splints.  Sun,  air, 
sleep,  food, — these  great  forces  that  we  are  incapable 
of  originating, — to  them  are  due  the  steadiest,  most 
beneficent  sources  of  health. 

*  Psalm  127:  2  (R.  V.  and  margin). 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

QUALITIES  THAT  ATTRACT  SUCCESS 

1.    Devotion 

The  word  ''success"  is  one  of  the  most  rousing  in 
the  EngHsh  language.  In  that  seven-lettered  word 
are  wrapped  up  the  hopes  of  every  one  of  us.  Success 
hangs  above  us  like  a  star,  darkened  at  times  by  the 
clouds  of  failure  that  surround  us,  shining  out  again 
when  by  the  insight  of  faithfulness  we  penetrate  the 
mist.  Success  is  never  wholly  reached;  it  is  always 
beyond  us,  yet  always  attracting  us  as  long  as  we  are 
spiritually  alive. 

There  comes  now  and  again  to  a  hospital  a  sad-eyed 
patient  who  when  asked  her  symptoms  answers  that 
she  has  lost  her  ambition.  It  is  that  that  troubles  her 
more  than  discomfort,  and  rightly;  for  in  losing  what 
she  calls  "her  ambition"  she  has  lost  that  which  makes 
life  worth  living.  Those  downcast,  sodden  people  who 
don't  care  enough  for  success  to  raise  a  finger  for  it  are 
of  all  I  know  the  most  depressing.  For  unless  there  is 
something — vague  or  definite — that  the  thought  of 
success  stirs  in  you,  you  are  hardly  alive  at  all. 

I  believe  that  there  are  certain  characteristics  as 
sure  to  attract  success  as  is  a  flowering  rhododendron 
to  attract  bees.  I  believe  also  that  though  the  secret 
of  what  these  qualities  are  has  been  often  told,  it  has 
not  yet  been  fully  heard.  There  is  need  to  tell  it  over 
and  over  again.  I  will  try  to  tell  this  secret  of  suc- 
cess in  such  a  way  that  you  will  hear  it. 

The  quality  that  attracts  success  which  will  here 


Qimlities  that  Attract  Success  119 

J_  first  be  considered  is  devotion.  Devotion  implies  the 
ability  to  care  deeply  and  care  persistently.  To  play 
the  violin  indifferently  or  carelessly  is  to  play  it  badly. 
Indifference  is  always  failure.  It  does  not  so  much 
lead  to  failure;  it  is  itself  failure.  To  succeed,  then, 
we  must  care  for  our  work  all  the  tune.  You  know 
the  type  of  worker  who  says,  "Well,  that  job  is  off  my 
hands  at  last!"  You  know  too  those  who  delight  in 
their  work.  Ray  Stannard  Baker  so  exults  in  the 
detailed  investigation  of  social  conditions  necessary 
for  writing  magazine  articles  that  he  says  it  seems  wrong 
to  be  paid  for  doing  it.  An  enthusiastic  Boston  doctor 
was  asked  how  he  had  enjoyed  his  summer  in  Europe. 
"England  was  great,"  he  replied,  "and  the  vacation 
in  Spain  was  magnificent,  but  nothing  is  half  as  much 
fun  as  my  work  at  the  Massachusetts  General  Hos- 
pital." 

But,  you  may  feel,  such  enthusiasm  is  tempera- 
mental. Some  people  are  hot-blooded  all  the  time, 
Uke  Roosevelt;  others  have  what  might  be  called  a 
sub-normal  moral  temperature.  Ask  such  an  one, 
"Would  you  like  to  go  to  the  theatre?"  He  answers 
with  provoking  languor,  "I  don't  care  whether  I  do 
or  not.      It's  all  the  same  to  me." 

To  succeed  in  any  work  it  is  essential  to  care,  I  said. 
WTiat  can  a  person  do  who  is  not  natufally  enthusi- 
astic? First,  attack  his  work  all  the  harder.  The 
dull  is  always  the  shallow.  It  is  the  superficial  of 
which  we  tire.  When  we  get  deep  into  any  work  it 
almost  always  becomes  interesting,  even  fascinating. 
You  must  have  felt  this  in  some  of  your  studies.  The 
lessons  that  at  first  seemed  dull,  surprised  you  by  becom- 
ing interesting  when  you  worked  hard  over  them. 
Start  in,  then,  with  a  little  carefully  nurtured  interest 
and  keep  it  polished  by  elbow  grease  until  it  shines  as 
bright  as  a  copper  kettle. 


120  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Second,  don't  admit  that  you  are  bored  by  your 
work.  Wait  until  that  mood  passes  before  you  speak 
of  it.  I  know  a  girl  who  gives  up  one  piece  of  work 
after  another  because  she  tu'es  of  each.  She  seems  to 
imagine  that  the  fact  that  she  is  bored  is  of  any 
importance.  She  does  not  realize  that  we  must  make 
life  interesting  rather  than  wait  for  it  to  amuse  us. 
There  would  be  fewer  failures  if  we  all  realized  that, 
no  matter  what  our  mood  may  be,  we  can  always  show 
devotion  to  our  task. 

Devotion  means  not  only  the  power  of  caring  a 
great  deal,  it  also  means  doing  more  than  you  are  told 
and  more  than  is  expected  of  you.  Anyone  who  does 
more  than  he  is  told  is  exceedingly  likely  to  be  success- 
ful. We  all  know  people  who  try  to  get  off  with  just 
so  much  work  and  no  more — the  people  who  cut  their 
work  off  sharply  as  with  the  edge  of  a  hatchet.  The 
workman  leaving  his  nearly  completed  job  on  the  stroke 
of  four,  or  the  girl  watching  the  clock  while  practicing 
so  that  she  can  jump  up  the  minute  that  the  hour  is 
over, — both  these  are  sure  to  be  failures,  in  the  sense 
that  they  will  never  reach  the  heights  they  are  capable 
of  reaching.  But  the  person  who  does  more  than  he 
is  told  to  do  and  does  it  well  is  rare,  extraordinarily 
rare.  If  I  hire  a  man  to  shovel  the  snow  off  my  side- 
walk, and  I  find  that,  without  being  told,  he  has 
sanded  it  carefully  where  it  was  slippery,  and  made  a 
path  also  to  my  barn,  that  is  the  kind  of  man  I  am 
unlikely  to  part  with. 

Devotion  means  also  being  all  there,  concentrated, 
thorough.  It  is  the  opposite  of  the  attitude  that  says, 
''I  shall  not  be  much  late,"  or  ''That  will  do  fairly 
well,"  or  ''I'll  do  better  another  time."  You  remem- 
ber Josh  Billings'  remark  about  the  moral  symbolism 
of  a  postage-stamp:  "Consider  the  postage-stamp, 
my  son.     It  takes  a  firm  hold  and  sticks  to  it  until  it 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  121 

gets  there."  A  person  need  not  be  quick  or  brilliant. 
He  may  be  slow  and  almost  stupid,  but  if  he  has  these 
qualities  of  thought  fulness  and  thoroughness,  he  will 
win  success  in  his  own  line. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  that  we  use  this  one  word 
"devotion"  in  two  different  ways?  Devotion  means 
caring  with  all  your  might;  it  also  means  an  act  of 
worship.  I  suppose  both  meanings  belong  together. 
"\Mien  you  care  a  great  deal  you  become  consecrated 
toward  what  you  love.  It  is,  as  we  say,  all  the  world 
to  you.  Captain  Robert  Scott  was  devoted  to  his 
object  of  reaching  the  South  Pole.  Day  after  day,  he 
and  his  group  of  friends  tramped  and  trudged,  har- 
nessed to  a  heavy  sledge,  over  loose,  sandy  snow, 
broken  and  clogging,  or  sharp  and  cutting.  It  was 
piercing  cold,  deadly  monotonous,  mcreasingly  dan- 
gerous every  day.  Yet  they  would  not  turn  back. 
They  were  devoted  to  their  cause  with  all  their  heart 
and  mind  and  strength:  with  all  their  heart,  for  they 
loved  it  bej^ond  life  and  were  ready  to  die  for  its  sake; 
with  all  their  mind,  for  every  thought  was  directed  to 
one  aim.  That  they  were  devoted  with  every  atom 
of  their  strength,  no  one  who  knew  the  physical  strain 
upon  them  could  ever  doubt. 

I  said  they  were  devoted  to  their  aim  with  all  their 
heart,  but  that  is  not  quite  true.  Back  of  their  desire  to 
be  the  first  Englishmen  to  find  the  South  Pole  and  return 
in  safety,  was  something  else  that  held  them  steady 
under  disappointment  and  unto  death.  They  desired 
the  will  of  God  more  than  to  be  great  discoverers. 
And  that  is  why  the  story  of  their  last  weeks  cuts 
through  any  tangle  of  repining  selfishness  down  to  the 
bed-rock  of  character.  When  the  five  explorers — Scott, 
Wilson,  Gates,  Evans  and  Bowers — neared  the  South 
Pole,  Bowers'  quick  eye  saw  a  black  speck.  It  was 
the  Norwegian  flag.     Amundsen,  their  rival,  had  got 


122  Our  Part  in  the  World 

there  first.  All  their  hopes  of  being  discoverers  were 
ended. 

"Well,"  wrote  Scott,  ''we  have  turned  our  backs 
now  on  the  goal  of  our  ambition  and  must  face  our 
eight  hundred  miles  of  solid  dragging, — and. good-bye 
to  most  of  our  day-dreams.  It  is  a  terrible  disappoint- 
ment, and  I  am  very  sorry  for  my  loyal  companions."* 
''Many  thoughts  come,"  ...  he  added;  but  the 
extraordinary  thing  is  that  these  thoughts,  bitter  and 
regretful  as  they  may  have  been,  were  held  from  utter- 
ance. The  men  bore  their  disappointment,  like  every 
other  hardship,  manfully,  though  I  truly  believe  that 
they  would  have  succeeded  in  getting  back  safely  if 
the  tragedy  of  failure  had  not  weakened  their  spirited 
resistance  to  hardship. 

All  the  way  toward  home  was  a  valiant,  tragic  fight 
with  intense  cold,  with  gnawing  and  weakening  hunger, 
and  with  dangerous  frost-bites.  Finally  Evans,  weak- 
ening mentally  each  day,  fainted  in  the  snow  and  died. 
The  rest  struggled  on,  Wilson,  the  doctor,  sacrificing 
his  own  chances  of  safety  by  working  in  the  cold  over 
Gates'  feet.  Still,  as  Scott  says,  they  all  were  unend- 
ingly cheerful  when  in  the  tent.  "One  can  only  say 
'God  help  us!'  and  plod  on  our  weary  way,  cold  and 
very  miserable,  though  outwardly  cheerful."! 

Before  very  long  Gates'  feet  gave  out  entirely. 
He  not  only  suffered  terribly,  he  delayed  the  others 
and  he  knew  the  end  was  near.  Gn  March  15th  he 
deliberately  walked  out  from  the  tent  into  the  raging 
blizzard,  sajdng  simply,  "I  am  just  going  outside  and 
may  be  some  time."  He  never  came  back.  He  wanted 
to  give  his  comrades  a  chance.  By  the  18th  Scott's 
right  foot  was  frozen  and  infected  and  next  day  he 
knew  that  amputation  was  the  only  hope.     The  bliz- 

*  The  Voyages  of  Captain  Scott,  by  Charles  Turiey,  p.  384. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  410. 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  123 

zard  held  on  in  fury  for  four  days  and  the  thermom- 
eter was  forty  below  zero.  It  was  impossible  to  move, 
food  was  low,  and  fuel  exhausted.  They  were  wholly 
without  means  of  heat.  Yet  through  these  last  days 
in  paralyzing  cold  the  men's  courage  was  dauntless. 
To  the  last  they  put  science  first,  and  carried  to  the 
tent  where  they  died  besides  necessary  supplies  a 
hea\'y'  additional  burden,  thu-ty-five  pounds  of  im- 
portant geologic  specimens.  The  end  drew  near  for 
them  all.  As  he  lay  slowly  freezing  and  starving, 
Scott  wrote  letter  after  letter  of  tender  sympathy  to 
the  relatives  of  his  dying  friends.  Of  Dr.  Wilson,  his 
best  friend,  he  wrote:  ''I  should  like  you  to  know 
how  splendid  he  was  at  the  end — everlastingly  cheer- 
ful and  ready  to  sacrifice  himself  for  others,  never  a 
word  of  blame  to  me  for  leading  him  into  this  mess.  .  .  . 
His  eyes  have  a  comfortable  blue  look  of  hope  and  his 
mind  is  peaceful  with  the  satisfaction  of  his  faith  in 
regarding  himself  as  part  of  the  great  scheme  of  the 
Almighty."  * 

For  himself  he  added:  ''If  I  knew  the  wife  and  boy 
were  in  safe  keeping  I  should  ha^^e  little  regret  in 
leaving  the  world,  for  I  feel  that  the  country  need  not 
be  ashamed  of  us.     The  great  God  has  called  me." 

Death  terrifies  men  sometimes,  more  often  it  comes 
like  sleep,  gently  and  unforeseen;  but  it  is  rare  that, 
facing  death  in  the  lonely  presence  of  cold  and  piercing 
wind,  a  man  can  spend  his  last  minutes  and  use  his 
freezing  fingers  to  write  words  of  consolation,  of  courage, 
of  peace,  and  of  ready  acceptance  of  the  frustrating  will 
of  God. 

Was  the  life  of  Captain  Scott  failure  or  success?  Is 
it  not  truer  to  say  that  either  word  is  too  small  to  hold 
the  greatness  of  his  soul  or  the  greatness  of  the  spirit 
of  his  deeds?     There  is  a  sense  of  worldly  failure  in 

*  The  Voyages  of  Captain  Scott,  by  Charles  Turley,  p.  421. 


124  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Scott's  death.  There  is  a  far  more  stirring  sense  of 
heavenly  victory.  True,  he  and  his  company  did  not 
reach  the  South  Pole  first,  but  that  is  almost  irrelevant. 
The  attempt  was  not  a  game  to  see  who  could  get  there 
first.  It  was  an  effort  to  know  the  southernmost 
reaches  of  the  world.  Scott's  party  reached  the  Pole, 
and  they  reached  it  because  of  their  intelligence,  de- 
votion and  courage.  That  is  surely  success.  They 
were  successful  in  their  scientific  work.  The  photo- 
graphs, the  geologic  specimens,  the  weather  observa- 
tions and  the  sketches  found  beside  their  dead  bodies 
are  evidence  of  victory. 

Even  more,  they  reached  an  amazing  moral  success. 
No  one  can  read  these  letters  written  by  Captain 
Scott,  as  he  lay  slowly  dying,  without  feeling  a  death- 
less nobility  and  grandeur.  Death  is  usually  passive 
and  solitary.  But  there  in  their  canvas  tent,  the  three 
friends  lay  together  dying  in  a  peace  that  surely 
passed  understanding,  loving  each  other  and  serving 
each  other  to  the  very  end.  Those  who  found  these 
heroes  knew  that  such  a  death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory.  When  the  burial  service  had  been  read,  their 
comrades  worked  ''from  this  time  well  into  the  next 
day  to  build  a  mighty  cairn  above  them,"  surmounted 
by  a  cross  of  skis,  and  on  it  with  a  short  record  of 
their  history  was  written,  "A  slight  token  to  per- 
petuate their  successful  and  gallant  attempt  to  reach 
the  Pole." 


,CH.\PTER   XXVIII 
QUALITIES  THAT  ATTRACT  SUCCESS 

2.    Imagination 

"  Oh,  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie  us 
To  see  oursels  as  ithers  see  us," 

wrote  Robert  Burns.  It  has  long  seemed  to  me  a 
strangely  mistaken  request.  To  see  ourselves  as 
others  see  us  would  be  distinctly  embarrassing.  It 
would  tend  to  make  us  self-conscious.  Just  as  Mr. 
Politicus  began  an  eloquent  speech  he  would  become 
aware  that  Mrs.  Critical  thought  his  mouth  too  large. 
As  Harry  played  his  pet  serve  in  tennis  he  would  be 
made  awkward  by  the  consciousness  that  Tom  was 
criticising  the  position  of  his  arm.  If  the  ''power" 
did  let  us  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us,  we  should  often 
have  to  muster  our  forces  to  do  our  work  without  car- 
ing what  anybody  thought  of  us. 

But  there  is  a  reallj^  valuable  gift  that  the  power 
called  imagination  bestows  on  us,  and  that  is  the  ability 
to  see  others  as  they  see  themselves.  Imagination 
trains  the  power  to  see  other  people's  joys  and  sorrows 
as  though  they  were  our  own.  Have  you  ever  thought 
how  much  more  real  and  vivid  our  view  of  our  own 
affairs  is  than  that  of  our  neighbor's  affairs?  If  I 
fall  awkwardly  on  the  ice  and  bump  myself  it  hurts 
much  more  and  it  is  not  nearly  as  fumiy  as  when 
someone  else  falls  do\Mi.  Yet  I  know,  of  course,  that 
my  neighbor's  black  and  blue  spots  are  as  sensitive 
as  my  own.  If  my  friend's  train  is  delayed  so  that 
she  misses  an  important  engagement,  it  is  difficult 
to  reaUze  that  it  is  quite  as  disappointing  as  when  I 


126  Our  Part  in  the  World 

miss  mine.  Through  imagination  I  can  picture  her 
disappointment  and  perhaps  help  her  out  by  the  use 
of  my  automobile. 

Because  imagination  gives  the  power  to  see  others 
as  they  see  themselves,  it  is  one  of  the  sustaining  quali- 
ties in  friendship.  Friends  can  rest  in  the  loyalty  of 
the  person  of  quick  and  trained  sympathy.  Just  as 
many  thoughtless,  pain-giving  acts  are  done  through 
lack  of  imagination,  so  dehghtful,  unexpected  acts 
are  born  of  sympathy.  Only  lately  I  heard  one  of 
them. 

A  little  old  woman  traveling  east  from  Chicago 
leaned  forward  to  a  neighbor  and  asked,  "Does  the 
train  stop  fifteen  minutes  at  Springfield?  I  have 
been  traveling  since  yesterday  morning,  and  I  do 
think  a  cup  of  coffee  would  taste  so  good."  As  the 
train  drew  in  to  Springfield  off  she  hopped,  but  came 
back  in  a  minute  looking  unsatisfied  and  worried. 
My  friend  imagined  the  cause.  The  old  lady  had 
lost  her  nerve.  The  coffee-room  was  crowded  and 
she  was  distrustful  of  the  time.  Quietly  my  friend 
slipped  out  of  the  train,  into  the  lunch-room,  and  was 
back  to  the  car  with  a  steaming  cup  of  coffee  for  the 
old  lady.  She  could  not  get  over  her  gratitude. 
Time  and  again  on  the  trip  to  Boston  she  leaned  forward 
murmuring  rapturously,  "You  ain't  got  no  idea  how 
good  that  coffee  tasted." 

From  the  smallest  acts  of  courtesy  to  strangers  to 
the  most  brilliant  new  inventions,  imagination  has 
play.  Everyone  needs  it,  everyone,  I  beheve,  has  a 
httle.  Imagination  grows  like  a  vine  under  cultiva- 
tion. If  you  feel  yourself  lacking  in  imagination, 
train  yourself  to  observe,  watch  for  chances  to  help, 
try  to  put  yourself  in  the  situation  of  others.  Learn  to 
think  ahead  what  will  be  needed  on  a  mountain  climb; 
make  a  point  of  writing  to  the  friend  who  is  going 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  127 

away,  picture  the  lives  of  the  people  you  meet,  read 
books  that  will  light  up  distant  countries  or  near-by 
conditions. 

A  friend  of  mine  calls  imagination  the  inside  point  of 
view.  It  is  the  power  to  see  through  the  veils  that 
cover  people  and  things.  So  Jesus  looked  through  the 
veil  in  every  person  he  met  and  deep  down  to  their 
hopeful  goodness.  Without  imagination  we  cannot 
be  in  any  important  sense  successful,  for  we  shall  miss 
the  inner  meanings,  the  hidden  opportunities,  the 
messages  that  come  through  looks,  not  words,  the 
chances  to  see  what  is  new  in  the  old  places. 

Lack  of  imagination  leads  to  acts  that  are  brutal. 
A  deformed  boy  in  addition  to  his  own  handicap  has 
to  bear  the  pain  of  having  people  stare  at  him.  Does 
anyone  imagine  that  he  would  himself  enjoy  being 
stared  at  if  he  were  deformed? 

A  child  who  was  paralyzed  once  told  me  that  almost 
everyone  turned  round  and  scrutinized  her,  looking  at 
her  long  and  curiously  as  if  at  a  strange  animal.  This 
scrutiny  was  tormenting  to  her  at  first  and  drove  her  into 
discomfort  and  self-consciousness  whenever  she  had  to 
go  out  alone.  She  was  a  plucky  child  and  she  learned 
to  ignore  these  piercing  eyes,  but  a  quicker  imagination 
on  the  part  of  the  passers-by  would  have  banished 
their  unintentional  cruelty  or  transformed  it  into  sen- 
sitive kindness.  Why  do  people  stare  at  deformity? 
Simply  from  curiosity  unchecked  by  sympathy.  They 
do  not  see  others  as  others  see  themselves.  Yet  it  is 
quite  possible  to  express  one's  natural  interest  by  a 
deed,  not  of  careless  curiosity,  but  of  quick,  imaginative 
kindness.     Let  me  tell  you  of  such  an  act. 

In  the  early  uses  of  the  powerful  X-ray  machine, 
many  doctors  were  injured.  The  delicate  tissues  of 
their  hands  were  destroyed  and  sometimes  several 
fingers  were  so  diseased  that  they  had  to  be  amputated. 


128  Our  Part  in  the_  World 

An  X-ray  practitioner,  whom  I  will  call  Dr.  Swift,  was 
one  of  these  whose  hands  suffered  most  and  became 
most  painfully  deformed.  One  evening  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Swift  were  asked  to  a  dinner  of  distinguished  people. 
The  doctor  was  troubled  because  he  knew  it  would 
look  strange  to  the  men  and  women  about  him  if  he 
wore  gloves  while  at  dinner,  and  yet  his  pitiful  hands 
were  too  disfigured  to  let  him  go  without  gloves. 
When  the  dinner  began,  what  was  his  surprise  to  find 
that  his  thoughtful  host  also  wore  gloves  all  through 
the  meal,  so  that  Dr.  Swift,  far  from  being  conspicu- 
ous, was  apparently  simply  following  his  host's  cus- 
tom. All  of  us  have  chances  to  use  our  imagination 
for  such  delicate  deeds  of  kindness.  It  is  well  worth 
while  to  hunt  for  such  opportunities. 

Imagination  keeps  us  from  many  a  hurtful  deed.  I 
remember  once  reading  of  a  boy  sent  to  a  Reform 
School  for  stealing  who  was  given  some  watermelon 
seeds  to  plant  in  his  garden  patch.  Just  before  one 
huge  melon  was  ripe,  it  was  stolen  and  carried  off. 
The  imagination  in  that  boy  was  roused.  He  saw 
what  property  meant.  For  the  first  time  he  realized 
that  other  people  loved  what  they  cared  for,  and  that 
it  was  theirs,  not  his.  Much  that  is  wrong  is  done 
through  lack  of  imagination,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  noblest  acts  are  sunlit  with  its  beauty.  Shelley  felt 
so  strongly  the  need  of  imagination  in  daily  life  that 
he  wrote:  ''A  man  to  be  greatly  good  must  imagine 
intensely  and  comprehensively.  The  joys  and  sor- 
rows of  his  race  must  be  as  his  own," 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

QUALITIES  THAT  ATTRACT  SUCCESS 

3.     Readiness  to  take  Responsibility 

In  the  life  of  Sister  Dora,  by  Lonsdale,  is  an  incident 
that  illustrates  her  exceptional  readiness  for  responsi- 
bility. Though  delicate  when  a  child,  she  grew  up 
unusually  strong,  and  had,  what  is  far  more  important 
to  success  than  a  strong  body,  a  tremendous  love  of 
people.  She  became  interested  in,  and  worked  for, 
the  coal  and  u'on  workers  at  Walsall,  England,  who 
were  often  badly  injured  through  accidents  in  the  mines. 
Gradually  she  became  such  an  expert  in  setting  frac- 
tures and  in  dressing  wounds  that  the  doctors  used  to 
leave  simple  surgical  operations  to  her.  One  night  a 
strong  young  man  was  brought  into  the  hospital  with 
his  arm  torn  and  twisted  by  a  machine.  The  doctor 
wanted  to  amputate  the  arm  at  once.  The  young  fel- 
lo\y  groaned  out:  ''O  Sister,  save  my  arm.  It's  my 
right  arm!"  Its  loss  meant  poverty  and  misery  for 
wife  and  children.  Sister  Dora  observed  his  strength. 
She  examined  the  wound  and  decided  that  the  arm 
might  be  saved.  Then  she  said  to  the  surgeon,  "I 
believe  I  can  save  this  arm  if  you'll  let  me  try."  The 
doctor  exclaimed:  ''Are  you  mad?  Nothing  but 
amputation  can  save  his  life."  Quickly  Sister  Dora 
turned  to  the  patient.  ^'Are  you  willing  to  let  me  try 
to  save  your  arm?"  The  young  man  joyfully  con- 
sented. ''Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "his  death  is  on  your 
conscience.     I  wash  my  hands  of  him." 

It  was  a  hea\'y  responsibility  to  bear  alone, — the  risk 
of  letting  a  3'oung  man  die, — but  Sister  Dora  thought 
it  right  to  take  the  chances.     For  three  weeks  she 


130  Our  Part  in  the  World 

watched  and  tended  ''her  arm,"  as  she  called  it,  almost 
literally  day  and  night.  It  was  a  time  of  terrible  sus- 
pense, but  little  by  little  the  arm  improved.  At  the 
end  of  the  time  she  begged  the  doctor  to  come  and 
look  at  her  patient.  He  came,  still  grumbling  and 
reluctant,  but  when  he  saw  the  lad's  arm  straight  and 
healed  he  was  genuinely  delighted.  He  brought  all  the 
rest  of  the  hospital  staff  to  exult  with  him  in  Sister 
Dora's  achievement.  ^  The  workman  became  a  de- 
voted friend  to  Sister  Dora.  Months  later,  when  she 
herself  was  ill,  he  walked  twenty-two  miles  every 
Sunday  morning  just  to  inquire  for  her  health.  When 
the  servant  appeared  in  answer  to  his  vigorous  pull  at 
the  hospital  bell,  he  eagerly  asked,  ''How's  Sister?" 
and  when  he  had  received  his  answer,  said,  "Tell  her, 
that's  her  arm  that  rang  the  bell." 

We  are  not  likely  to  meet  just  the  type  of  responsi- 
bility that  faced  Sister  Dora  on  her  path,  but  we  shall 
every  one  of  us  find  responsibility  in  our  own  path,  that 
road  which  we  must  take  if  we  are  to  advance.  Whether 
or  not  we  face  the  danger  and  conquer  it,  depends 
largely  on  whether  we  have  cultivated  in  small  things, 
as  in  great,  the  courage  of  initiative.  It  is  such  courage 
of  initiative,  such  readiness  to  take  responsibility  that 
makes  men  and  women  leaders.  Watch  the  faces  and 
the  actions  of  the  people  around  you  on  the  streets,  in 
business,  in  political  life.  Soon  you  will  begin  to  dis- 
tinguish leaders  from  followers.  What  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  leaders,  the  followers,  and  the  drift- 
ers? Notice  their  motions,  quick  and  intentional,  or 
.timid  and  vacillating.  Look  at  their  mouths, — firm 
in  line  or  drooping,  sneering  or  reverent,  interested  or 
bored.  Watch  where  their  eyes  turn.  Are  they  intel- 
ligently examining  something,  are  they  wandering,  or  are 
they  looking,  like  a  collie,  for  the  command  of  a  master? 

I  heard  one  day  a  business  man  speaking  of  his 


Qvxilities  that  Attract  Success  131 

stenographer.  "She  is  admirable,"  he  said,  "abso- 
lutel}'  faithful,  exact,  orderly,  regular,  but  as  soon  as 
I  ask  her  to  do  anything  out  of  the  ordinary  run, — to 
phrase  a  letter  to  one  of  my  correspondents,  or  to  make  a 
new  decision, — she  fails  me.  I  should  be  glad  enough  to 
advance  her  salary  if  she  would  only  show  some 
initiative." 

"What  is  your  httle  Itahan  office  boy  doing  now?" 
I  asked  another  man.  "He  is  rising  like  an  aeroplane," 
he  answered.  "From  the  start  he  was  most  intelligent 
and  alert!  He  noticed  everything,  he  helped  out  in 
every  difficulty,  he  was  so  ready  to  take  new  jobs  and 
do  them  well,  that  now  he  is  at  the  head  of  the  office 
staff.     He  may  be  a  partner  yet." 

In  the  less  responsible  days  of  the  United  States,  it 
was  gaily  said  that  every  boy  thought  of  himself  as 
a  possible  future  President.  Of  the  responsibilities  of  a 
President  we  are  becoming  more  and  more  aware.  The 
strain  of  unending  work,  the  weight  of  immense  de- 
cisions, rests  on  the  man  who  receives  that  honor. 

Even  in  far  less  important  positions  the  weight  of 
responsibility  must  be  carried.  Here  is  a  description 
of  some  difficult  and  responsible  ambulance-dri\'ing 
during  the  Great  War.  "Such  driving  as  we  do  was 
never  conceived  of  by  motorists  before  this  war.  .  .  . 
Driving  a  car  laden  ^dth  men  whose  lives  depend  on 
reaching  the  hospital  as  soon  as  possible  is  a  consider- 
able responsibihty.  When,  in  addition,  they  have  to 
be  carried  along  roads,  or,  more  likely,  mere  trails, 
that  are  being  shelled  or  may  be  swept  with  rifle  fire, 
often  at  night  with  no  light,  and  through  the  unending 
crowd  of  moving  troops,  guns,  ammunition,  and  re- 
victualing  trains,  the  responsibility  is  considerably 
increased.  A  man  must  keep  absolutely  cool  and  his 
temper  unruffled,"  * 

*  Harvard  Volunteers  in  Europe,  ed.  by  M.  A.  DeW.  Howe,  Houghton 
Mifilin  Company,  chapter  by  Richard  Norton,  p.  191. 


132  Our  Part  in  the  World 

To  measure  up  to  responsibility  demands  steady  at- 
tention, being  ''all  there/'  and  there  to  the  end;  it  re- 
quires unswerving  control,  clearness  of  head,  and  above 
all  a  disciplined  will.  "  Once  two  men  were  putting  up 
a  lightning-rod  on  a  high  steeple.  At  a,  height  of 
seventy  feet  from  the  ground,  one  had  to  stand  on 
the  other's  shoulders  and  hold  a  pail  of  molten  lead. 
The  wind  rose  and  blew  some  of  the  lead  out  of  the 
pail  on  to  the  hand  and  arm  of  the  man  below,  burn- 
ing him  badly.  If  he  had  jumped  or  tried  to  scrape 
the  lead  off,  he  would  have  caused  the  man  on  his 
shoulders  to  fall  and  be  killed.  But  the  man  did  not 
move:  he  held  still  and  let  the  hot  lead  burn  into  his 
flesh.     By  so  doing  he  saved  the  life  of  his  friend. 

Wlien  the  disciples  of  Jesus  asked  him  light-heartedly 
who  should  sit  on  his  right  hand  and  his  left  in  the 
coming  Kingdom,  he  answered  by  the  searching  ques- 
tion, ''Are  ye  able  to  be  baptized  with  the  baptism 
that  I  am  baptized  with?"  The  weight  of  responsi- 
bility resting  upon  Jesus,  lifted  by  him  as  he  lifted  his 
cross  and  bore  it,  was  inuneasurably  heavy.  Most 
reformers  are  satisfied  to  help  a  small  group,  to  reform 
a  town,  to  improve  an  institution.  Jesus  came  to 
save  the  world  and  to  bring  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

We  think  unduly  sometimes  of  the  tenderness  and 
gentleness  of  Christ.  He  was  above  all  a  commander. 
His  appeal  was  never  a  mere  request  or  invitation; 
it  was  in  the  imperative:  "Come  unto  me."  "Judge 
not  that  ye  be  not  judged."  "Get  thee  hence,  Satan." 
"Leave  all  and  follow  me."  These  are  the  words  of  a 
leader  of  men. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

QUALITIES  THAT  ATTRACT  SUCCESS 

4.     Truth 

During  the  broiling  days  of  the  summer  of  1863 
Mr.  H.  Clay  Trumbull  tells  us  he  was  a  prisoner  of 
war  in  Columbia,  South  Carolina.*  He  was  desper- 
ately lonely,  and  since  he  was  not  on  parole,  but  con- 
fined under  guard  in  a  jail,  his  thoughts  and  those  of 
his  fellow-prisoners  turned  persistently  to  plans  of 
escape.  One  night  a  scheme  that  seemed  likely  to 
succeed  was  proposed.  Trumbull  at  first  eagerly  in- 
dorsed it,  but  as  the  plan  was  developed  he  saw  that 
it  almost  inevitably  involved  lying  to  the  enemy.  He 
recoiled,  he  even  refused  to  go  if  he  were  forced  to  lie. 
'^  A  lie !  What  is  it  to  lie  to  an  enemy?  Would  you  not 
be  quite  ready  to  kill  him?"  exclaimed  his  astonished 
comrades.  "Yes,  surely,"  answered  young  Trumbull. 
''To  kill  him  would  be  my  duty  just  as  it  is  on  the 
battlefield."  ''Why,  then,  not  he?"  Trumbull  could 
only  answer  that  a  lie  seemed  to  him  a  sin  against 
God. 

Later  he  thought  the  question  out  and  came  to  this 
conclusion:  God  is  the  author  of  hfe  and  death. 
Go\'ernments  derive  all  their  powers  from  God.  In  a 
righteous  war,  the  officers  of  government  take  life  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  war  as  God's  agents.  In  a 
righteous  cause,  then,  a  man  takes  the  enemy's  life 
as  he  risks  his  own  in  the  service  of  God.  But,  argued 
Trumbull,  God  can  kill  but  He  cannot  lie.     God  is 

*  A  Lie  Never  Justifiable,  by  H.  Clay  Trumbull,  John  D.  Wattles  &  Co., 
Philadelphia,  1893. 


134  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Truth;  lying  is  contrary  to  His  nature,  and  if  He 
cannot  lie,  neither  can  He  authorize  others  to  lie. 
Lying  is  always  ungodlike,  contrary  to  the  nature  of 
God  and  therefore  always  wrong.  Decisively,  then, 
Trumbull  refused  to  escape  from  imprisonment  at  the 
cost  of  a  single  lie,  for  he  felt  that  any  lie  misrepresents 
and  dishonors  God.  Many  men  will  not  lie  under 
oath,  but,  asked  Trumbull,  ''What  difference  does  an 
oath  make?"  Every  lie  is  in  full  sight  of  God,  goes 
against  His  truth  and  dishonors  Him.  It  is  therefore 
never,  at  bottom,  a  question  of  not  lying  to  harm  one's 
neighbor  or  society,  important  as  this  is.  No,  even 
if  lying  helped  society  or  one's  neighbor,  lying  is  wrong, 
for  in  lying  one  injures  the  cause  of  God. 

At  first  sight  many  of  you  will  turn  away  from  this 
view  of  lying.  Do  not  do  that  too  quickly.  Think  of 
it  a  long  time,  let  the  picture  impress  itseK  on  your 
mind.  Hold  the  idea  in  your  thought  even  though  it 
does  not  appeal  to  you,  for  it  is  one  that  years  hence 
you  may  see  is  true.  Truth  is  supreme  among  the 
virtues.  It  is  like  a  lake  that  reflects  experience. 
Falsehood  muddies  this  reflection  of  reality;  wind- 
blo\vn  exaggeration  breaks  reahty  into  uneven  sur- 
faces. Falsehood  we  accurately  call  perversion.  It 
twists,  snarls,  confuses,  tortures  the  face  of  reality. 
To  pervert  the  truth  intentionally  is  like  sullying  a 
well  on  whose  pure  water  the  people  depend  for  life. 
Can  you  conceive  of  Christ's  lying  even  for  the  kindest 
of  reasons?  No,  not  to  conceal  the  fate  of  Jerusalem 
from  its  people,  nor  to  spare  them  the  suffering  caused 
by  the  knowledge  of  his  death,  nor  to  evade  the  enemies 
who  would  kill  him.  Jesus  healed  the  sick,  but  we 
cannot  picture  Him  trying  to  save  their  lives  by  lying 
to  them.     His  life  is  translucent  truth. 

A  clever  man  once  put  together  these  two  sayings: 
"A  lie  is  an  abomination  unto  the  Lord,  and  a  very 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  135 

present  help  in  trouble."  It  is  true.  A  lie  is  a  very 
present  help  out  of  difficulty,  but,  and  tliis  is  the  point 
to  remember,  it  helps  you  in  the  immediate  present  and 
injures  you,  and  not  only  you  but  society  as  a  whole,  in 
the  long  future.  For  observe  this  argument:  (1)  No  one 
lies  except  in  the  hope  that  he  will  be  believed,  but  (2) 
every  lie  makes  it  harder  to  be  believed  again  and 
therefore  (3)  every  lie  tends  to  make  it  hard  in  future 
either  to  lie  or  to  secure  belief  when  you  tell  the  truth. 

I  remember  as  a  child  being  impressed  by  a  story 
of  Dr.  Howard  N.  Brown's.  It  told  of  an  untruthful 
girl  who  joyfully  escaped  from  the  restraints  of  home 
and  went  to  a  country  in  wliich  lying  was  popular  and 
prevalent.  Plere  at  first  she  had  a  time  of  perfect 
bUss,  for  it  was  the  land  of  promise  if  not  the  Promised 
Land.  Everything  was  promised  to  her,  high  wages, 
comfort,  fun,  luxury.  But  notliing  was  ever  done, 
for  lying,  kind  and  soothing  lying,  was  all  the  fashion. 
Dr.  Brown  brought  out  in  this  story  a  very  significant 
fact.  In  a  community  of  liars  or  in  the  mouth  of  an 
habitual  liar,  a  lie  is  useless  because  it  is  not  believed. 
Lying  is  suicidal.  If  anyone  is  kno^vn  to  lie,  his 
words  are  discounted  and  his  expression  or  his  actions 
are  watched.  Therefore  lying  is  only  made  possible 
by  the  general  practice  of  truth-telling.  In  refusing 
ever  to  swerv^e  from  the  truth  we  uphold  and  defend 
society  which  depends  for  its  safety  upon  tiaith  and 
confidence. 

But,  I  almost  hear  you  say,  how  can  I  be  decently 
poUte  and  still  tell  the  truth?  I  answer  by  another 
question.  Is  lying  really  courteous?  We  do  not  lie  to 
our  best  friends.  No,  I  believe  that  to  lie  to  any  one 
through  mistaken  kindness  is  to  dishonor  him  by  the 
assumption  either  that  he  is  outside  the  pale  of  your 
friendship  or  that  he  is  within  it  but  is  a  weakling  who 
cannot  bear  a  blow.     That  you  want  to  tell  him  the 


136  Our  Part  in  the  World 

truth  pleasantly  goes  without  saying,  and  telling  the 
truth  never  means  dumping  out  all  you  may  have  in 
your  mind  in  a  confused  heap.  Telling  the  truth 
means  giving  what  you  believe  to  be  the  facts,  carefully, 
accurately,  and  with  special  consideration  of  your 
hearer's  point  of  view.  It  is  at  bottom  an  effort  to 
back  up  reality,  to  do  our  minute  but  important  part 
in  sustaining  God's  truth.  Here  is  a  selection  from  a 
very  ancient  document,  from  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas, 
in  which  this  idea  is  well  though  quaintly  expressed: 

"Love  the  truth  and  let  nothing  but  truth  proceed 
from  your  mouth,  that  the  spirit  which  God  has  placed 
in  your  flesh  may  be  found  truthful  before  all  men  and 
the  Lord  who  dwelleth  in  you  will  be  glorified,  because 
the  Lord  is  truthful  in  every  word  and  in  Him  is  no 
falsehood.  They,  therefore,  who  lie,  deny  the  Lord 
and  rob  Him,  not  giving  back  to  Him  the  deposit 
which  they  have  received.  For  they  received  from 
Him  a  spirit  free  from  falsehood.  If  they  give  Him 
back  this  spirit  untruthful,  they  pollute  the  com- 
mandment of  the  Lord  and  become  robbers."* 

*  Shepherd  nf  Hermas,  The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Book  II.,  Command- 
ment Third. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

QUALITIES   THAT   ATTRACT   SUCCESS 
5.    Loyalty 

In  the  region  east  of  the  St.  Lawrence  River  Uved  a 
half-breed  Indian  named  Tom.  One  summer  two 
gentlemen  asked  Tom  to  guide  them  on  a  trip  back 
thi'ough  the  deep  woods  to  a  soUtary  pond  called  Lac 
de  la  Lune  where  moose  and  caribou  were  said  to 
abound  and  little  white  ermine  and  sable  ran  wild 
in  the  woods.  Tom  could  not  go  hmiself,  but  he  said 
his  boy  Walter,  aged  fourteen,  knew  the  way  and  would 
guide  them.  So  Walter  was  engaged  and  they  set  off 
by  canoe  with  a  good  store  of  provisions  and  their 
rifles  and  axes.  Soon  after  they  reached  the  Lac  de  la 
Lune,  Walter  begged  to  run  up  to  the  top  of  a  hill  near 
by  to  get  a  look  out  over  the  country.  The  hunters 
were  glad  enough  to  let  the  restless  lad  go,  but  told 
him  to  return  in  an  hour. 

The  afternoon  passed  and  no  Walter;  night  came 
with  fog  and  smoke  obscuiing  the  hills,  a  very  uncom- 
fortable night  for  the  hunters.  They  shouted  for 
Walter;  they  built  a  large  fire  to  attract  hun  if  he  were 
within  sight;  and  they  discussed  what  they  should  do 
when  it  grew  light  enough  to  hunt  for  the  lost  boy. 
Both  agreed  that  he  was  unhkel}'^  to  return  to  the  spot 
where  they  were  if  he  had  been  wandering  all  night,  and 
they  decided  that  the  wisest  thing  to  do  was  to  find 
their  way,  as  best  they  could  in  that  unkno^^^l  and 
unbroken  country,  back  to  Tom's  camp.  Without 
Walter's  knowledge  of  the  country  they  could  only 
guess  as  to  direction,  and  they  guessed  wrong.     For 


138  Our  Part  in  the  World 

two  days  they  scrambled  over  fallen  trees  before  they 
struck  the  river  and  found  the  camp.  As  soon  as  Tom 
was  seen,  peacefully  smoking  by  his  fire,  they  shouted, 
''Have  you  seen  Walter?"  ''Walter?  Oh,  yes,"  he 
answered.  "And  is  he  safe  and  here?"  "Not  here," 
he  replied;  "I  ask  Walter  where  were  his  gentlemen! 
I  tell  him  go  right  back  and  get  them." 

With  only  a  piece  of  bread,  Walter  had  set  out  again 
over  the  lonely  trail  to  Lac  de  la  Lune.  Loyalty  to 
your  word,  loyalty  under  any  change  of  conditions 
whatsoever,  was  Tom's  standard.  The  two  hunters 
were  amazed.  It  would  take  at  least  two  nights  for 
Walter  to  regain  Lac  de  la  Lune,  two  nights  alone  in 
the  woods  with  wolves  growling  around  him  and  only 
a  loaf  of  bread  for  provender  if  he  lost  his  way.  Back 
went  the  hunters  over  their  tracks  to  Lac  de  la  Lune. 
There  was  Walter  sitting  on  a  log  by  the  fire,  whittling. 
"Weren't  you  lonely?"  they  asked.  "Oh,  no;  but 
the  wolves  howled  all  night,"  replied  Walter.  He 
told  them  that  when  he  had  climbed  the  hill  he  lost 
his  way  in  the  smoke  and  came  down  on  the  wrong 
side.  After  wandering  about  some  time  he  saw  a 
landmark  he  knew  and  tracked  his  way  home.  But 
he  was  not  in  the  least  surprised  or  indignant  that  his 
father  sent  him  off  directly  to  find  the  hunters.  ' '  Fulfil 
your  contracts  no  matter  how  hard," — that  was  the 
code  of  the  stern  and  upright  Indian  father. 

And  though  it  often  leads  up  through  rough  country, 
loyalty  to  your  pledges  is  almost  the  earmark  of 
character,  disloyalty  its  defacement.  Such  loyalty 
begins  in  small  ways,  but  even  in  trifles  it  makes  its 
dent  in  character.  When  you  make  up  a  bed,  study 
a  Latin  lesson,  or  pick  a  quart  of  blueberries,  it  is  a 
test  of  character,  whether  you  do  it  right  up  to  the 
mark  and  straight  through  to  the  end,  or  whether  in 
the  middle  you  dip  into  a  magazine  on  the  table  or 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  139 

nibble  a  few  of  the  blueberries  that  were  to  fill  the 
quart  measure.  "He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is 
least  is  faithful  also  in  much,"  said  Jesus.  I  once 
engaged  a  Japanese  artist  to  paint  a  frieze  of  irises  and 
herons  round  the  base  of  my  dining-room  walls.  Day 
by  day,  squatted  on  the  floor,  he  labored  patiently, 
onlj'-  stopping  at  noon  to  eat  his  rice  and  fish.  One 
day  as  I  came  in  I  said:  "You  need  not  decorate 
that  wall.  The  sideboard  is  to  stand  there  per- 
manently and  the  wall  will  be  hidden."  He  looked 
at  me  almost  sternly.  "Madam,  that  wall  shall  be 
painted  as  beautifully  as  the  rest,"  he  replied,  and  I 
was  silenced.  I  had  been  thinking  only  of  what  was 
visible;  he  was  painting  for  an  invisible  master.  It 
was  a  small  piece  of  work.  That  did  not  matter.  He 
would  do  it  as  to  the  Lord;   he  would  not  shirk. 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

QUALITIES  THAT  ATTRACT  SUCCESS 

6.    Courage 

Here  are  two  different  stories  of  courage  that  come 
from  the  great  European  War.  Both  are  true.  The 
first  is  that  of  a  young  soldier  in  the  British  Army.  It 
was  his  duty  to  throw  bombs,  a  very  dangerous  task. 
One  afternoon,  just  as  he  was  about  to  throw  his  bomb, 
it  was  struck  by  shrapnel  from  the  opposing  forces. 
Instinctively  he  dropped  the  bomb  and  darted  up  the 
side  of  the  trench  to  escape  the  explosion.  But, 
turning,  he  saw  in  an  instant  that  the  bomb  in  explod- 
ing must  kill  the  others  in  the  trench.  He  did  not 
hesitate.  He  leaped  back  into  the  trench  and  threw 
his  body  down  upon  the  bomb.  It  exploded  and  he 
was  killed  in  a  flash;  but  by  his  sacrifice  he  had  saved 
every  man  in  his  trench. 

The  other  story  *  is  of  a  French  mother,  an  elderly 
peasant  woman,  whose  three  sons  went  to  fight  for 
France.  In  the  terrible  battle  of  the  Marne,  at  the 
outset  of  the  war,  her  house  was  burned  down  and  the 
two  older  sons  were  killed.  The  youngest,  Gustave, — 
only  seventeen, — was  her  beloved.  She  felt  toward 
him  as  Jacob  felt  toward  Benjamin,  for  ''her  life  was 
bound  up  in  the  lad's  life."  A  year  passed  and  the 
old  mother  heard  that  Gustave  had  been  wounded  and 
was  in  a  hospital  a  hundred  miles  away.  She  packed 
up  her  little  bundle  of  clothes  and  set  out  to  walk  the 
long  miles  to  the  hospital.  I  have  seen,  thrown  on  the 
screen,  the   photograph  of  Gustave  and   his  mother. 

*  From  The  White  Road  to  Verdun,  by  Kathleen  Burke,  George  H.  Doran 
Co.,  p.  166. 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  141 

They  are  sitting  in  the  open  cloister  of  an  abbey  now 
used  as  a  hospital  for  the  wounded.  Gustave  is  slowly 
getting  well,  and  all  day  long  his  mother  sits  close  beside 
him.  His  head  is  in  her  lap.  They  seem  wholly  at 
peace.  One  day  the  head  nurse  passing  by  said  to  the 
mother,  "Do  you  not  almost  wish  that  your  son  need 
never  go  back  to  the  war?  "  The  mother's  eyes  flashed. 
"Indeed  I  do  not  so  wish.  He  must  go.  You  do 
wrong  even  to  ask  the  question,  mademoiselle.  What 
would  become  of  our  beloved  France  if  every  mother 
or  sweetheart  or  wife  spoke  as  you  speak?" 

Here  is  the  letter  that  President  Lincoln  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Bixby,  that  Boston  woman  who  lost  five  sons  in 
the  Ci\il  War. 

''Dear  IMadam:  I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of 
the  War  Department  a  statement  of  the  Adjutant- 
General  of  Massachusetts  that  you  are  the  mother  of 
five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle. 
I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of 
mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the 
grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  refrain 
from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save. 
I  pray  that  our  heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the 
anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and  leave  you  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  sol- 
emn pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly 
a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom." 

Do  men  or  women  have  to  play  the  braver  part  in 
war?  No  one  can  ever  wholly  know.  All  we  know 
is  that  God  gives  to  each  his  special  task,  whether  it 
be  pain  or  death  or  loneliness,  and  with  the  task  the 
courage  comes.  Can  we  ever  say  that  men  are  any 
more  brave  than  women?  They  are  on  the  whole 
more  fearless,  but  is  it  the  same  thing  to  be  brave 
as    to    be    fearless?      No;    courage    is    always    the 


142  Our  Part  in  the  World 

overcoming  of  fear,  and  that  means  that  those  who  are 
naturally  timid  may  have  more  and  better  chances 
for  courage  than  those  who  are  naturally  fearless. 

A  large  prize  was  offered  for  the  greatest  act  of 
heroism  shown  during  the  year  1916.  It  was  given 
to  a  sailor  on  a  torpedoed  vessel  who  at  great  risk  in 
a  rough  and  icy  sea  swam  three  times  back  from  the 
life-boat  to  the  ship  to  rescue  three  comrades  who 
could  not  swim.  Surely  it  was  a  brave  act,  but  as 
I  read  of  it,  I  could  not  but  think:  Who  can  con- 
ceivably estimate  which  is  the  most  valiant  act  in 
that  year  blazing  with  heroic  self-sacrifice?  God 
alone  knows,  for  He  alone  knows  the  secret  terror 
overcome,  the  hopes  thrust  aside,  the  dive  forward 
from  cowardice  to  self-forgetting  valor. 

There  are  many  different  ways  of  being  brave. 
It  may  take  far  more  courage  to  speak  the  truth  than 
to  suffer  pain.  It  may  be  braver  in  a  lad  to  bear 
without  striking  the  taunts  of  his  companions  who 
think  him  a  coward  than  to  fight.  There  is  a  seem- 
ing courage  that  is  mere  bravado.  True  courage 
knows  the  danger,  counts  the  cost,  and  yet  dares 
to  act. 

There  is  courage  whose  center  is  long,  unflinching 
initiative  and  endurance.  One  of  the  heroines  of  the 
twentieth  century  is  Catherine  Breshkovski,  a  woman 
whose  life  is  an  extraordinary  romance.  The  rich 
and  noble  Russian  family  of  whom  she  came  lived  in 
Oriental  luxury.  Money  was  freely  lavished,  but  not 
given  to  the  poor.  As  a  child  of  five  Catherine  was  re- 
proached for  giving  a  poor  girl  her  velvet  cloak.  ''The 
Bible  tells  us  to  do  it,"  was  Catherine's  answer.  When 
she  grew  up  she  tried  to  solve  the  land-boundary  diffi- 
culties of  the  peasants,  then  she  began  to  teach  them, 
till  all  teaching  was  discouraged  by  the  government. 
Her  father  opposed  her  wish  to  earn  her  living,  but 


Qualities  that  Attract  Success  143 

the  desire  was  too  deep  to  be  rooted  out.  She  learned 
a  wool-dyer's  trade  because  in  practicing  it  she  could 
go  from  village  to  village  and  teach  the  people.  They 
did  not  know  of  her  rank,  for  she  stained  her  face 
and  roughened  her  hands  to  pass  among  the  peasants 
as  one  of  them. 

One  day  the  collection  of  maps  and  papers  express- 
ing her  socialistic  beliefs  was  found  by  a  peasant  girl 
who  betrayed  her  to  the  govermnent.  For  two  years 
she  was  kept  in  solitary  confinement  at  Petrograd 
and  in  Moscow,  then  was  sent  without  a  trial  to  Si- 
beria for  eighteen  years.  She  worked  contentedly 
making  clothes  for  the  prisoners  until  her  very  occu- 
pation helped  her  to  escape.  WTiile  she  rattled  the 
sewing-machine  to  cover  the  noise  of  his  undertaking, 
another  prisoner  dug  a  hole  by  which  she  with  three 
others  escaped.  She  was  undiscouraged  by  one  hundred 
m.iles'  walk  in  the  snow,  but  when  she  found  that  the 
peasants  who  were  ordered  to  arrest  her  would  be  put  to 
death  if  they  returned  without  her,  she  persuaded  the 
other  exiles  to  give  her  up.  With  an  added  sentence  of 
twenty- two  years,  back  she  went  to  the  terrible  prison 
of  Kara.  She  was  sometimes  six  days  without  food, 
and  the  dirt  and  stench  were  intolerable,  yet,  char- 
acteristically, she  calls  these  the  happiest  years  of 
her  life,  because  there  she  met  the  noblest  and  most 
undaunted  of  the  pohtical  prisoners.  Whenever  a 
chance  came  she  went  to  the  near  woods  and  to  keep 
her  soul  free  and  sane  she  sang  aloud  every  tune  she 
could  remember.  Her  father's  intense  love  followed 
her  exile  with  gifts,  but  he  could  not  shorten  her  term. 
He  died  before  her  twenty-two  years  were  ended. 
Then  she  came  back,  not  broken,  as  anyone  would 
expect,  but  blithe,  optimistic,  undaunted,  ready  for 
a  trip  to  the  United  States.  I  saw  her  when  she  was 
in  Boston  some  years  ago,  a  merry,  gray-haired  woman 


144  Our  Part  in  the  World 

of  sixty,  ready  to  dance  to  amuse  the  children  at 
Denison  House,  happy,  full  of  hope.  She  knew  that 
a  pure  democracy  requires  time  and  sacrifice.  She 
felt  no  bitterness  toward  the  Czar.  ''Poor  mistaken 
boy!  He  is  good  to  his  wife  and  his  children.  He's 
a  kind  neighbor."  She  foresaw  her  renewed  im- 
prisonment on  her  return  to  Russia.  "But  what  does 
it  matter?     I  am  an  old  woman." 

So  she  was  rearrested.  From  her  Siberian  exile  she 
wrote  again  dauntless  and  happy  letters  to  her  Ameri- 
can friends,  all  about  the  kindness  of  the  men  and  boys 
around  her.  Then  came  the  almost  bloodless  Russian 
revolution  of  1917,  and  to  the  exiles  in  distant  loneliness 
the  knowledge  that  they  were  free  to  go  home.  Across 
the  snow  hurried  many  thousand  sledges,  and  on  one 
of  them  was  Catherine  Breshkovski,  exile  no  longer. 
Before  many  weeks  we  heard  that  she  was  elected  as 
one  of  the  most  important  delegates  of  the  new  govern- 
ment. And  there  she  will  be  called  on  for  a  new  and 
different  courage  in  holding  the  nation  to  its  ideals. 
She  has  learned  in  the  hard  and  noble  school  of  ad- 
versity and  she  will  not  fail  even  in  prosperity. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
WORK 

In  one  of  ]\Ir.  Dooley's  pointed  and  sparkling  essays 
there  is  an  amusing  description  of  the  contrast  be- 
tween two  imaginary  parades  of  the  unemployed. 
One  group  carried  a  banner  which  bore  the  motto, 
"Give  us  work  or  we  perish."  The  banner  of  the 
other  group,  he  says,  accentuated  the  words,  ''Give  us 
nothing  to  do  or  we  perish."  These  two  mottoes 
express  the  feelings  of  two  different  sorts  of  people. 
On  the  whole,  the  American  whom  we  think  of  as 
typical,  enjoys  and  believes  in  work  and  is  vaguely 
or  consciously  unhappy  without  it.  He  likes  to  use 
his  hands;  they  help  to  express  him.  When  he  can- 
not use  them  he  is  apt  to  feel  self-conscious. 

This  desire  for  work  comes  also  from  the  fact  that 
Americans  expect  to  rise,  and  they  know  that  hard 
work  is  an  Alpenstock.  "What  Abraham  Lincoln  said 
in  his  speech  at  New  Haven  expresses  the  hope  of 
all  true  Americans: 

"I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five 
years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer,  mauling  rails,  at  work 
on  a  flatboat,  just  what  might  happen  to  any  poor 
man's  son.  I  want  every  man  to  have  a  chance  to 
better  his  condition,  that  he  may  be  a  hired  laborer 
this  year  and  the  next  work  for  himself,  and  finally 
hire  a  man  to  work  for  him." 

Work,  again,  is  good  because  it  takes  us  out  of  the 
stagnation  of  self-pity  or  pride  into  the  current  of 
activity.  Work  eagerly  undertaken  cleanses  us  from 
self-centredness. 


146  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Health,  as  well  as  spirits,  improves  under  work.  I 
remember  one  extraordinary  example.  A  woman 
over  sixty  with  serious  heart  trouble,  an  invalid  by 
necessity,  not  choice,  came  to  her  doctor  to  ask 
whether  she  might  not  abandon  her  restricted  and 
unoccupied  life,  for  a  time  at  least,  and  help  take  the 
United  States  census  of  1900.  She  had  done  it  ten 
years  before  and  greatly  enjoyed  the  task  and  its 
reward.  The  doctor  considered  first  her  happiness, 
secondly  her  health.  ''Well,  try  it,"  he  told  her, 
"but  do  not  be  disappointed  if  you  should  have  to 
give  it  up."  Five  days  later  one  of  the  woman's 
daughters  came  to  the  doctor  to  report:  "Mother  is 
wonderfully  better.  We  take  her  lunch  to  her  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  to  save  her  walking  home,  and  we 
find  her  still  fresh  and  eager  to  go  on."  The  improve- 
ment continued  till  the  task  was  accomplished,  and 
for  months  after.  Her  heart  was  not  cured,  but  she 
responded,  as  we  all  do  in  surprising  ways,  to  the  call 
for  loved  or  needed  service. 

Work,  then,  is  the  American's  sword  and  shield. 
With  it  he  cuts  his  way,  and  by  it  he  shields  himself 
against  morbidness  of  body  or  soul.  Some  of  you 
are  beginning  to  face  the  question  of  how  to  get  work. 
Some  excellent  suggestions  as  to  methods  are  found 
in  H.  C.  Bunner's  story  of  Zadoc  Pine.  After  his 
father's  death  Zadoc  is  left  to  earn  his  living  and 
goes  to  a  place  where  he  knows  no  one,  and  where  no 
special  opportunity  is  evident.  Quite  undaunted  and 
with  a  readiness  to  turn  both  his  hand  and  his  brain 
to  anything,  he  rises  to  legitimate  success.  This  is 
the  bare  outline  of  the  story;  read  it  yourself  to  get 
its  flavor.  If  you  are  ready  to  begin  at  the  bottom 
and  equally  determined  to  climb  step  by  step  to  the 
top,  you  are  more  than  likely  to  get  there.  The  great 
secret  of  success  is  to  become  indispensable,  to  have 


Work  147 

your  employer  find  that  things  go  well  when  you  are 
on  hand  and  that  he  misses  your  faitlifulness  and 
your  initiative  whenever  you  take  your  vacation. 

As  you  rise  in  the  ranks  of  successful  workers, 
you  are  going  to  learn  not  only  to  find  work  where 
you  can  do  your  bit  well,  but  also  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  work  for  those  less  strong  than  yourself, 
to  see  that  it  is  not  too  arduous  or  of  the  wrong 
kind.  No  leader  has  done  enough  when  he  or  she 
has  found  congenial  work.  You  must  make  sure  that 
those  who  work  for  you  or  near  you  are  not  working 
under  harmful  conditions. 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  case  of  child-labor  needing 
redress.  A  few  years  ago  a  little  girl  of  six  years  was 
helping  her  mother  in  a  Southern  mill.  She  could 
run  errands  and  pick  up  the  spools  and  skeins,  the 
mother  thought,  and  so  help  her  to  earn  more  money. 
"Besides,"  she  said,  "how  can  I  leave  her  all  alone 
to  run  wild  in  the  street  or  get  burnt  on  the  stove  at 
home?  I  must  keep  her  with  me  while  I  work." 
One  day  the  child  got  too  near  the  wheels  of  a  power- 
ful electric  machine.  In  its  rapid  motion,  it  sucked 
her  toward  itself.  Instantly  her  clothes  were  caught 
and  she  was  drawn  up  in  the  air.  Fortunately  the 
child's  dress  was  old  and  worn.  It  gave  way  under 
the  strain  and  down  she  fell,  startled  but  not  hurt. 
If  her  dress  had  held,  she  would  have  been  mangled 
or  killed. 

Such  cases  must  not  only  move  us,  they  must  make 
us  move.  Should  children  be  allowed  in  mills  where 
there  is  machinery?  Already  The  National  Child 
Welfare  League  is  trying  to  see  that  working  conditions 
for  children  are  improved.  By  the  time  you  are  able 
to  take  hold,  the  opportunities  to  help  children  who 
must  work  will  be  numerous  and  most  important. 

Those  who  are  to  become  not  only  good  workers 


148  Our  Part  in  the  World 

but  leaders  in  work,  need  to  learn  two  things  fully  as 
important  as  the  power  of  working  w^th  their  hands: 
first,  the  power  to  observe;  and  second,  the  ability 
to  think.  John  Ruskin  once  said,  ''For  every  man 
who  can  see,  there  are  a  thousand  who'  can  talk." 
In  my  Adirondack  camp  I  employed  two  guides. 
One,  named  George,  a  clever  woodsman  and  carpen- 
ter, laid  himself  out  to  foresee  our  wants.  If  it  was 
a  cold  night,  he  put  a  covered  lantern  in  each  bed 
till  the  lack  of  air  extinguished  it  and  left  the  bed- 
clothes comfortably  heated.  He  saw  that  we  needed 
waste-paper  baskets,  and  fashioned  them  out  of  birch- 
bark.  To  save  room  in  a  crowded  tent,  he  invented 
a  double-decker  bunk  of  two  bed  frames,  one  on  top 
of  the  other.  He  put  up  seats  in  the  woods  and 
planted  balsam  fir  near  the  paths.  The  second  guide, 
John,  was  a  strong,  pleasant  fellow,  but  somehow  his 
work  was  often  left  undone.  One  morning  I  asked 
George  what  was  the  trouble  with  John.  ''Oh,  he 
means  well,"  was  George's  answer,  "but  he  doesn't 
see."  That's  the  trouble  with  many  of  us.  We  don't 
see  what  is  needed. 

This  inability  to  see  comes  partly  from  our  being 
surrounded  by  the  conveniences  of  civilization.  How 
different  it  is  with  the  Indians!  "The  young  Indians 
have  many  hard  lessons  to  learn  from  their  earliest 
days, — hard  lessons  and  hard  punishments.  With 
them  the  dread  penalty  of  failure  is  'Go  hungry  till 
you  win,'  and  no  harder  task  have  they  than  their 
reading  lesson.  Not  twenty-six  characters  are  to  be 
learned  in  this  exercise,  but  one  thousand;  not  clear, 
straight  print  are  they,  but  dim,  washed-out,  crooked 
traces;  not  indoors  on  comfortable  chairs,  with  a 
patient  teacher  always  near,  but  out  in  the  forest, 
often  alone  and  in  every  kind  of  weather,  they  slowly 
decipher  their  letters  and  read  sentences  of  the  oldest 


Work  149 

writing  on  earth — the  one  universal  script — the  tracks 
in  the  dust,  mud,  or  snow.  These  are  the  inscrip- 
tions that  every  hunter  must  learn  to  read  infallibly, 
and  be  they  strong  or  faint,  straight  or  crooked,  simple 
or  overwritten  with  many  a  puzzling  diverse  phrase, 
he  must  decipher  and  follow  them  swiftly,  unerringly, 
if  there  is  to  be  a  successful  ending  to  a  hunt  which 
provides  his  daily  food."  * 

But  to  do  the  best  work  we  must  not  only  observe; 
we  must  also  think.  I  gave  in  Chapter  XII  an  ac- 
count of  Booker  T.  Washington's  and  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  desire  for  education.  Booker  T.  Washing- 
ton wanted  to  be  able  to  do  things,  and  the  school  he 
sought  was  primarily  an  industrial  school.  Lincoln 
most  of  all  wanted  to  understand,  to  gain  knowledge. 
He  did  not  vitally  care  whether  he  earned  a  living 
by  his  knowledge  or  not.  On  the  whole  we  might 
say  that  Booker  Washington  wanted  answers  to  the 
question  ''How?"  and  Lincoln  wanted  answers  to  the 
question  ''Why?" 

Most  people  are  content  with  asking  "i/oiyf  "  How 
do  you  sail  a  boat?  How  do  you  build  a  house?  How 
do  you  raise  hens?  How  do  you  learn  to  be  a  mechan- 
ical engineer?  How  do  you  make  a  vegetable  garden? 
How  do  you  bandage  a  wound?  Comparatively  few 
people  see  any  use  in  asking  "Why?"  but  those  who 
do  are  apt  to  get  farthest  ahead  in  the  long  run,  though 
not  always  at  the  start.  The  reason  for  this  is  that 
back  of  every  "How"  there  is  a  "Why,"  that  is,  a 
reason.  How  do  you  take  a  backhander  in  tennis? 
You  turn  sideways,  cross  your  right  arm  over  to  your 
left  side,  shift  your  hand  on  the  racket  so  that  the 
back  of  your  hand  is  nearest  your  body,  and  hit  the 
ball  from  as  far  back  as  your  arm  can  reach.  Yes, 
but  why  do  you  take  a  ball  back-handed?     Here  we 

*  From  Boy  ScoxUs  of  America,  by  Ernest  Thompson  Seton. 


150  Our  Part  in  the  World 

get  at  the  reason.     It  is  quicker  to  shift  the  position 
of  your  arm  than  to  run  sideways. 

''How  shall  I  build  a  wooden  house?"  is  a  very 
different  question  from  ''Why  should  I  build  a  wooden 
house?"  The  answer  to  the  latter  question  may  con- 
vince you  that  you  ought  not  to  build  in  wood  at  all: 
stone,  brick,  or  concrete  may  be  what  you  really  want; 
even  a  khaki  tent  may  answer  your  purpose.  "How 
did  the  Allies  resist  the  Central  Powers?"  is  a  ques- 
tion that  will  interest  every  military  man.  But 
"Why  did  the  Allies  resist  the  Central  Powers?"  is  an 
inquiry  far  more  penetrating,  and  of  interest  to  every 
one.  "Why  is  loyalty  to  one's  word  more  important 
than  death?"  "Why  is  democracy  the  hope  of  the 
world?"  The  power  to  think  which  enables  us  to 
answer  such  questions  as  these  penetrates,  before  long, 
into  religious  realms.  The  question  "Why?"  when  we 
follow  it  as  we  would  follow  a  brook,  leads  on  to  a 
larger  kind  of  question,  as  the  brook  speeds  on  to  the 
sea. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
TEAM   PLAY 

As  3^ou  look  over  the  courses  of  study  in  a  high 
school  catalogue,  do  you  ever  feel  that  there  are  gaps, 
and  that  the  things  you  most  want  to  know  have 
been  left  out?  "When  I  hear  of  nature  study,  I  often 
ask  myself,  why  not  courses  in  human  nature  study? 
For  though  it  is  interesting  to  know  about  the  trans- 
formation of  caterpillars  and  the  best  methods  of 
pressing  flowers,  it  is  certainly  far  more  essential  to 
understand  the  transformations  in  human  beings  and 
the  wa^'s  of  preserving  right  relations  to  them.  And 
though  you  may  want  to  get  on  in  your  study  of  the 
Latin  names  of  plants,  you  want  far  more  to  get  on 
with  men  and  women,  with  your  comrades  and  your 
employers.  That  is  true,  people  say,  but  it  is  simply 
impossible  to  make  a  study  of  human  nature.  I  do 
not  agree.  I  believe  that  by  observation,  by  thought, 
and  by  practice,  we  can  learn  to  know  people  well 
and  to  make  our  relations  to  them  far  better  than 
the}^  often  are  now.  Doctors  learn  the  art  of  respond- 
ing wisely  to  human  nature;  politicians  learn  to  get 
on  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men;  prison  re- 
formers grow  to  understand  the  men  and  women 
under  their  charge.  There  is  skill  but  no  magic  in 
the  process.  We  learn  because  we  want  and  need 
to  learn ;  also  because  we  practice  the  art  of  team  play. 

Team  play  has  a  double  meaning.  Accent  the  word 
play  and  it  applies  to  sport,  but  accent  team  and  it 
means  acting  together  rather  than  singly  in  any  enter- 
prise.    The   English-speaking   races   have   long   been 


152  Our  Part  in  the  World 

devoted  to  sport.  Tennis  is  described  by  Shakespeare 
and  was  even  then  a  well-estabHshed  game.  Cricket 
in  England  and  baseball  in  the  United  States  are 
games  in  which  an  entire  nation  exults.  And  I  sup- 
pose that  the  greatest  gain  from  such  sports,  beyond 
and  above  that  of  health  and  happiness,  has  been 
the  development  of  fair  play  and  of  team  play.  Fair 
play  I  have  described  before  as  a  characteristic  Amer- 
ican trait.  Team  play,  an  almost  equally  important 
trait,  we  are  learning  partly  through  the  stress  of 
modern  war,  which  requires  all  members  of  the  nation 
to  work  together,  and  partly  in  early  youth,  through 
athletics. 

In  athletics  everybody  has  to  possess  or  to  acquire 
the  power  to  be  a  good  loser.  If  two  are  playing 
against  one  another,  one  must  win  and  one  must  lose; 
therefore  to  be  both  a  good  loser  and  a  good  winner  is 
essential.  How  does  one  learn  to  be  a  good  loser? 
It  comes  much  harder  to  some  folks  than  to  others. 
The  happy-go-lucky  and  the  thoughtless  may  forget 
the  loss  of  a  game  instantly,  but  to  those  who  find 
defeat  hard,  the  only  cure  lies  in  a  very  swift  read- 
justment of  one's  point  of  view.  The  readjustment 
in  one's  mind  is  something  like  this:  ''I'm  beaten! 
Well,  I  am  going  to  learn  to  play  so  much  better, 
that  I  can  win.  I'm  beaten,  but  that  is  no  reason 
for  being  sulky.  I've  got  to  brace  up,  and  congratu- 
late the  winner.  It  wasn't  hard  luck;  I  was  not  good 
enough  to  win." 

To  win  without  conceit  is  a  parallel  art,  learned, 
first  of  all,  because  conceit  is  universally  unpopular, 
but  becoming  in  the  end  a  definite  habit  of  looking 
beyond  the  immediate  and  transitory  success  to  one's 
own  ideal.  For  one  never  wholly  succeeds  and  one 
never  wholly  fails.  Beyond  the  success  in  a  particu- 
lar game  one  looks  out  to  the  vast  possibilities  of  any 


Team  Play  153 

interesting  game,  and  bej'ond  a  momentary  failure, 
to  all  which  that  failure  can  teach  of  future  success. 

It  is  often  in  athletics  that  the  power  of  team  play 
is  first  learned.  If  this  power  develops  as  it  should, 
it  becomes  a  far  greater  thing,  the  abihty  to  get  on 
with  different  kinds  of  people.  How  can  this  power 
of  getting  on  with  many  kinds  of  people  be  learned? 
First  by  the  clearly  chosen  intention  of  liking  every- 
body. In  the  summer  of  1917,  when  starvation  faced 
the  entire  world,  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  among  other  wise  suggestions  for  food 
economy,  issued  this  one:  ''Remove  from  your  vocabu- 
lary 'Don't  like'  or  'Can't  eat.'  Most  individual 
prejudices  against  certain  foods  are  either  imaginary  or 
baseless.  Try  to  hke  all  kinds  of  foods;  give  them 
a  fair  trial."  Translate  this  into  other  terms  and  it 
still  holds  good.  "Remove  from  your  vocabulary 
'Don't  like'  or  'Can't  get  on  with.'  Most  individual 
prejudices  against  certain  folks  are  either  imaginary 
or  baseless.  Try  to  like  all  kinds  of  folks;  give  them 
a  fair  trial." 

Again  and  again  you  wall  find  that  the  reason  you 
don't  like  people  is  because  you  think  they  don't  like 
you,  and  the  reason  they  don't  like  you  is  because 
they  imagine  that  you  don't  like  them.  It  is  a  vicious 
circle.  Break  it!  How?  Make  a  point  of  noticing 
every  good  quality  the  disliked  person  possesses. 
Praise  him  to  yourself  whenever  you  think  of  him 
and  whenever  you  speak  of  him.  Above  all,  do  him 
a  good  turn  whenever  you  have  a  chance.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  keep  on  bad  terms  with  anyone  to  whom  you 
keep  doing  kindnesses.  Deem  yourself  a  failure  if 
you  can't  get  on  with  a  wide  variety  of  people.  Vari- 
ety is  the  spice  of  life.  Like  everybody,  and  you 
are  pretty  sure  to  be  hked. 

One  great  secret  in  getting  on  with  people  and  with 


154  Our  Part  in  the  World 

work,  too,  is  apparently  a  negative  one.  It  is  the 
power  to  refrain.  "He  was  so  provoking  that  I 
couldn't  help  giving  him  a  piece  of  my  mind."  Now 
a  piece  of  your  mind  may  well  be  a  most  generous  and 
intimate  gift,  but  the  piece  we  give  under  irritation 
is  apt  to  be  raw.  Can  you  refrain  from  criticism? 
Can  you  refrain  from  gossip?  Can  you  refrain  from 
rudeness?  Can  you  refrain  from  temptation  that  will 
waste  your  time  and  misdirect  your  effort?  The 
things  a  person  has  the  self-command  not  to  say  or 
not  to  do  may  help  him  more  than  seven-league  boots 
that  carry  him  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Ability  to  get  on  with  all  sorts  of  people  is  depend- 
ent largely  on  interest  in  them  and  a  real  desire  to 
understand  them.  The  point  of  contact,  even  with 
entire  strangers,  is  quickly  found  when  we  are  looking 
for  the  best  in  sight.  One  every-day  incident  will 
illustrate  this  point. 

On  a  stage-coach  trip  in  the  Yosemite  Valley  a 
few  summers  ago,  we  were  one  day  stranded  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain.  The  coach  in  which  we  had 
been  traveling  left  us  to  return  to  its  starting-point. 
Another  coach  was  to  meet  us,  but  as  we  alighted 
there  was  no  sign  of  it.  Half  an  hour  passed  and  still 
no  coach  was  in  sight.  The  situation  looked  sterile. 
We  were  on  a  dusty  road  with  no  view  in  any  direc- 
tion except  sight  of  further  stretches  of  dusty  road, 
a  large,  roughly  constructed  stable,  and  a  little  shanty 
in  which  the  stable-keeper  lived.  The  stout  old  Ger- 
man in  our  party  with  his  equally  stout  wife  in  their 
crumpled  linen  dusters  settled  down  on  the  bank  to 
growl  at  fate.  Nothing  could  move  them  from  this 
engrossing  occupation.  The  stableman  was  currying 
his  horses  and  did  not  invite  interruption.  The  bride 
and  her  adoring  husband  had  other  reasons  for  ab- 
sorption.    We  peered  about  us  for  possible  openings. 


Tea7n  Play  155 

Then  we  saw  the  door  of  the  little  shanty  open  and 
a  child  of  three  toddled  out,  followed  slowly  by  its 
lame  mother,  who  carried  a  baby.  She  came  some- 
what painfully  up  the  steep  road  and  greeted  us. 
"Oh,  I'm  glad  to  see  you  folks!  It  is  so  lonesome 
here,  and  most  people  go  right  on  as  soon  as  the  horses 
are  changed."  The  Germans  and  the  bride  ignored 
the  interruption  and  stared  past  her  down  the  coach- 
less  road.  We  turned  to  her  eagerly:  "Do  you  live 
here  all  the  year  round,  and  are  there  no  neighbors?" 
"Nobody  nearer  than  Raymond.  In  the  winter  I 
go  there  and  it's  perfectly  lovely,"  she  said,  naming 
a  dreary  town  which  the  railroad  terminus  had 
evolved, — a  town  we  had  rejoiced  to  leave.  "But 
eight  months  of  the  year  L  have  no  one  to  talk  to  but 
John,  and  he's  mostly  busy  \^dth  the  horses.  I  don't 
dare  to  think  what  would  happen  if  the  children  were 
to  take  sick.  There  is  no  doctor  within  fifty  miles. 
The  baby's  teething  now  and  she's  very  fretful.  I 
don't  think  the  milk  suits  her." 

An  inlet  into  patient  loneliness  opened  before  us; 
part  of  the  anxiety  we  could  cure,  a  little  of  the  lone- 
liness we  could  Hghten  for  a  time  by  the  lift  of  human 
kindness.  The  doctor  prescribed  a  better  mixing  of 
milk  for  the  baby,  he  gave  the  tired  woman  some 
directions  for  her  own  help,  he  looked  at  the  bruised 
arm  of  the  stable-keeper,  washed  and  bound  it  up. 
And  one  more  grievance  was  alleviated, — httle  Charlie, 
aged  three,  persistently  ran  away.  We  suggested 
tethering  him  to  a  large  stone,  and,  feeUng  the  irre- 
sistible pull  of  the  rope  when  he  reached  the  limit, 
Charfie  accepted  the  inevitable  with  entire  content- 
ment. 

The  arrival  of  the  coach  startled  us;  we  were  not 
nearly  at  the  end  of  an  interesting  talk.  We  had 
only  time  to  give  our  address  to  the  woman  and  ask 


156  Our  Pari  in  the  World 

her  to  let  us  know  about  the  baby's  health.  The 
rest  of  the  party  growled  through  all  the  long  drive 
in  the  moonlit  woods.  Our  minds  were  full  of  a  little 
human  drama,  a  touch  of  reality  as  moving  in  its  way 
as  the  chastened  outline  of  the  Half-Dome.  Not 
every  halting-place  contains  a  bit  of  human  drama, 
but  the  seeing  eye,  the  readiness  of  sympathy,  the 
resource  of  penetrating  faith,  will  never  fail  to  find 
and  to  construct  the  best  personal  relations. 

Team  play,  then,  in  its  least  important  form  makes 
one  a  good  mixer,  liked  in  any  society.  In  its  more 
important  form  it  makes  one  an  invaluable  worker, 
capable  of  organizing  a  group.  In  its  highest  form 
it  makes  one  a  master  of  fate. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
FRIENDSHIP 

I  WISH  we  had  a  word  intennediate  between  "ac- 
quaintance" and  "friend."  When  I  receive  a  multi- 
graphed  letter  from  a  total  stranger  beginning  "Dear 
Friend,"  it  is  apt  to  go  into  that  useful  article  of 
furniture,  my  waste-paper  basket.  And  why?  Be- 
cause he  has  addressed  his  letter  to  the  wrong  person: 
I  am  not  his  friend.  I  know  that  I  have  not  won  the 
title.  I  want  the  word  deepened,  not  lessened,  in 
meaning.  In  an  official  report  printed  by  a  Directory 
of  Charities  a  few  years  ago  a  well-known  institution 
of  philanthropy  gives  the  following  notice:  "Friend- 
ship furnished  to  all  ages  and  both  sexes."  The 
remark  was  made  in  earnest,  but  it  is  best  received 
with  humor.  Friendship  cannot  be  dealt  out  like 
pea-soup  to  all  comers.  It  cannot  be  cut  m  measured 
lengths  like  a  machine-made  suit.  Pity  can  be  given, 
servility  may  be  bought,  but  friendship  is  won  or 
grows  by  the  grace  of  God. 

WTiat,  then,  is  friendship?  Friendship  is  a  re- 
lationship in  which  we  mutually  and  lovingly  seek  to 
find  and  sustain  in  one  another  the  fullest  life.  How 
dry  that  sounds!  Let  us  try  again.  Emerson  says 
that  there  are  two  qualities  essential  to  friendship, 
truth  and  tenderness.  ' '  A  friend  is  a  person  with  whom 
I  may  be  sincere.  Before  him  I  may  think  aloud.  I 
am  arrived  at  last  in  the  presence  of  a  man  so  real  and 
equal  that  I  may  drop  even  those  undermost  garments 
of  dissimulation,  courtesy,  and  second  thought,  which 


158  Our  Part  in  the  World 

men  never  put  off,  and  may  deal  with  him  with  the 
simplicity  and  wholeness  with  which  one  chemical 
atom  meets  another."  * 

When  we  face  clearly  the  meaning  of  this  perfect 
truthfulness  which  is  essential  to  friendship  we  see 
that  it  at  once  limits  the  number  of  those  whom  v^^e 
can  call  our  friends.  Like  a  sudden  advance  in 
the  standard  of  marking  an  examination,  it  excludes 
as  below  par  much  that  has  before  passed  muster. 
What  would  it  be  to  have  every  thought,  great  or 
trivial,  float  out  unchecked  into  hearing?  Almost 
invariably  we  restrain  our  thoughts  and  revise  them 
before  we  speak.  A  stranger  often  misunderstands 
our  meaning  unless  we  do  this.  We  ourselves  are 
sometimes  ashamed  of  what  we  have  for  a  few  moments 
let  ourselves  think.  But  Emerson  speaks  of  friendship 
as  a  relation  of  such  trust  that  even  our  unchastened 
and  fleeting  thoughts  would  be  seen  by  our  friend  in 
their  true  perspective  and  so  understood.  There  is 
another  aspect  to  this  perfect  openness.  The  presence 
of  my  friend  may  enable  me  to  speak  aloud  my  inner- 
most thoughts,  because  his  presence  will  abash  all  that 
is  unworthy  and  call  forth  something  better  than  I 
myself  knew  before. 

Emerson  does  not,  of  course,  mean  that  one  should 
always  think  aloud  with  one's  friends.  That  would 
become  both  embarrassing  and  wearisome.  What  he 
does  mean  is  that  nothing  disloyal  to  our  friendship 
should  be  permitted  to  linger  in  our  thought.  Is  it 
right  ever  to  say  behind  a  friend's  back  what  you 
would  be  unwilling  to  have  him  or  her  hear?  Of  course, 
there  might  be  compliments  that  would  embarrass  our 
friend.  There  might  be  something  about  her  health 
that  we  wanted  to  talk  over  with  the  doctor  or  with  her 
mother,  and  were  unwilling  to  have  her  hear.     There 

*  Essays,  First  Series,  by  P.  W.  Emerson,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 


Friendship  159 

are  friends  so  sensitive  that  we  could  not  give  them 
any  direct  criticism  though  we  might  within  perfect 
kindness  use  the  same  words  in  speaking  of  their  faults 
to  another.  Perhaps  we  may  agree  on  this  state- 
ment: "We  should  never  say  behind  a  friend's  back 
what  we  should  be  ashamed  to  have  him  hear."  Do 
we  live  up  to  this  standard?  Since  I  clearly  faced  this 
requirement  of  friendship,  I  have  been  shocked  to 
find  how  easily  I  can  fall  into  careless,  disloyal  criti- 
cism, that  I  would  be  ashamed  to  have  my  friend  hear. 

The  second  quality  by  which  Emerson  describes 
friendship  is  tenderness.  I  think  he  used  this  word 
rather  than  any  other  synonym  of  affection  to  express 
a  tie  at  once  hot  and  pure:  "We  are  holden  to  men  by 
every  sort  of  tie,  by  blood,  by  pride,  by  fear,  by  hope, 
by  lucre,  by  lust,  by  hate,  by  admiration,  by  every 
circumstance  and  badge  and  trifle,  but  we  can  scarce 
believe  that  so  much  character  can  subsist  in  another 
as  to  draw  us  by  love.  Can  another  be  so  blessed 
and  we  so  pure  that  we  can  offer  him  tenderness?"  * 

Tlirough  these  two  characteristics  of  perfect  sin- 
cerity and  of  tenderness  we  reach  far  into  the  nature 
of  friendship.  I  should  add  as  a  closely  connected  es- 
sential of  friendship  that  it  reaches  out  to  include  the 
whole  of  a  person's  life  and  interests.  "I  can't  be 
friends  with  anyone  unless  I  know  what  his  real  relig- 
ious beliefs  are,"  said  a  very  unanalytical  and  spon- 
taneous woman.  She  wanted  the  whole  of  her  friend, 
and  in  this  whole,  religion  w^as  so  integral  a  part  that 
she  could  not  feel  herself  thoroughly  a  friend  to  any 
one  until  she  knew  what  it  was  that  was  most  central 
in  his  life.  Tenderness,  openness  and  confidence, — 
especially  reHgious  confidence, — these,  then,  are  the 
characteristics  of  friendship. 

\\Tiat  are  the  best  ways  to  win  and  to  keep  friends? 
Three!     Be  worth  knowing;  be  outgoing;  be  growing. 

*  Op.  cit. 


160  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Friendship  sometimes  comes  unsought  and  it  is 
always  partly  undeserved,  as  every  friend  knows. 
We  dig  the  channel  for  a  stream  but  we  do  not  supply 
the  rain;  we  did  not  plant  the  exquisite  ferns  and  iris 
that  bend  over  the  brook.  Nevertheless,  unless  we 
keep  the  channel  deep  and  unclogged,  the  stream  will 
dwindle  or  overflow  to  other  banks.  If  we  are  truly 
worth  knowing,  someone  will  find  it  out,  as  birds  find 
in  a  drought  the  deeper  pools  that  have  not  dried. 
We  win  and  keep  friends,  also,  by  being  outgoing  and 
lovable,  not  by  the  effort  to  be  loved.  The  ardent 
passion  to  be  loved  scorches  friendship.  It  is  when  we 
think  of  others  that  our  friends  think  most  of  us.  It 
is  when  we  are  wide-awake  to  the  interests  of  the 
world  and  care  more  about  others  than  ourselves,  that 
people  find  us  good  comrades. 

An  enduring  friendship,  therefore,  depends  on  our 
growing  more  worthy  of  friendship  rather  than  on 
our  being  forever  near  one  another.  Absence  is  far 
less  a  barrier  than  the  most  continual  intercourse 
tainted  by  pettiness  or  by  jealousy.  Every  time  we 
are  unfair  or  disloyal  to  our  friends  we  are  carried 
farther  than  a  thousand  miles  away  from  them.  I 
find  myself  more  and  more  sure  that  people  hear  even 
an  unuttered  suspicion  of  them.  We  feel  distrust  and 
disloyalty  through  all  surface  cordiality.  It  sounds 
strange,  yet  it  is  really  true,  that  if  we  have  said  un- 
kind things  behind  a  friend's  back,  he  will  know  it, 
though  he  may  hardly  be  aware  that  he  knows  it. 
Something  delicate  in  the  friendship  is  crushed  by 
every  pettiness.  But  absence  rightly  spent  may  even 
strengthen  friendship.  When  we  meet  again  a  friend 
we  have  not  seen  for  years,  one  of  the  greatest  joys  is 
to  find  that  we  are  even  better  friends  than  we  knew 
how  to  be  before.  Our  experience,  our  loyalty  to  our 
work,  our  gains  in  self-control,  in  sympathy  and  in 


Friendship  161 

resourcefulness  wall  make  us  each  year  more  useful 
friends.  We  shall  have  the  marvelous  experience  of 
finding  that  all  we  have  done,  have  suffered,  have 
conquered,  has  prepared  us  for  meeting  again  our  old 
friends  and  for  making  new  ones.  We  need  not 
fear  absence  in  friendship;  we  must  rather  dread  and 
shun  the  disintegrating  power  of  wrong  doing  and 
WTong   thinking. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
ENEMIES 

A  PROMINENT  citizen  of  Boston  was  once  asked 
what  text  in  the  Bible  had  impressed  him  most  as  a 
boy.  ''The  text  'Love  your  enemies,'  "  he  rephed 
instantly.  "It  seemed  to  me  amazing.  I  could  not 
understand  how  it  was  possible  to  love  my  enemies. 
And  yet  the  saying  felt  true  to  me.  I  knew  in  some 
strange  way  that  it  was  the  right  thing  to  do." 

How,  indeed,  can  we  love  our  enemies?  It  seems 
absolutely  self-contradictory.  Enemies  are  people  we 
hate.  Can  one  turn  wolves  into  sheep-dogs?  It  will 
help  us  to  answer  this  question  if  we  define  the  word 
"enemy."  Our  enemies,  it  seems  to  me,  are  the 
people  who  tempt  us  to  wrong  doing,  who  thwart  our 
efforts,  misrepresent  us,  work  secretly  or  openly  to 
injure  us.     Naturally,  we  dislike  them. 

Owen  Jolmson,  in  The  Varmint,  describes  the  rivalry 
between  Dink  Stover  and  Tough  McCarthy.*  Stover 
hated  Tough  bitterly,  and  had  hated  him  ever  since 
the  day  when  he.  Stover,  just  arrived  at  school,  had 
"been  reprimanded  for  freshness  by  Tough  and  a 
number  of  older  boys.  Most  of  his  first  year  Dink 
Stover  had  continued  to  be  impudent,  had  taken  re- 
proof grumpily,  and  had  finally  centered  all  his  bitter- 
ness on  Tough.  In  his  second  year.  Stover,  on  ac- 
count of  his  speed  in  running  and  his  quick  mind, 
made  the  school  Varsity  eleven  as  a  substitute.  He 
had  by  now  learned  his  place  and  behaved  himself 
like  a  proper  lower-form  boy;  he  was  on  good  terms 
with  the  rest   of   the  school,   but  not  with  Tough. 

*  Retold  from  The  Varmint,  by  Owen  Johnson,  Baker  Taylor  Co. 


Enemies  163 

Him  he  hated  still,  and  would  accept  no  chance  for 
reconciliation.  Finally  came  the  great  game  of  the 
year,  and  owing  to  mischances  among  the  regular 
members  of  the  team  Stover  was  put  in.  The  game 
was  already  going  against  his  side.  In  vain  the  cap- 
tain had  tried  to  urge  on  the  team;  they  had  little 
fight  left  in  them.  Stover  did  his  best,  but  he  could 
not  feel  that  the  others  were  doing  all  they  could. 
There  was  Tough  McCarthy  in  particular;  why 
didn't  he  fight  more,  thought  Stover  bitterly. 

Then  gradually  Stover  became  so  occupied  in  try- 
ing to  see  ways  to  get  through  that  other  line  that  he 
forgot  to  hate  Tough,  w^ho  was  on  his  side,  and  sud- 
denly he  realized  that  it  was  Tough  who  had  been 
hauling  him  out  of  a  desperate  scrimmage,  who  had 
given  him  a  pat  on  the  back,  who  had  cried  out, 
"Good  old  Dink!"  The  attack  was  coming  all  on 
his  end  now,  and  he  and  Tough  McCarthy  were  the 
only  ones  who  could  stop  the  advance.  Dink  plunged 
ahead  side  by  side  with  his  former  enemy,  no  longer 
alone  and  desperate,  but  nerved  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  partner  whose  gameness  matched  his  own. 
They  carried  the  ball  thirty  yards  down  the  field,  only 
to  be  forced  back  again  toward  their  own  goal.  Dink 
began  to  his  amazement  to  find  that  he  loved  Mc- 
Carthy, fighting  there  by  his  side. 

In  one  of  the  last  plays  Stover  was  knocked  out. 
As  they  walked  him  up  and  down  for  a  minute  it  was 
McCarthy's  arm  which  was  round  him.  "O  Dink, 
you  can  last,  can't  you?"  ''I'm  all  right."  "It's 
the  last  stand,  old  boy."  So  the  game  began  again, 
with  only  two  minutes  more  to  play.  Stover  saw 
their  own  goal  posts  right  over  his  shoulders;  they 
must  hold  their  opponents  from  scoring.  He  gave  a 
harsh  cry  and  slammed  his  way  through  the  inter- 
ference  with    Tough    beside   him.    And    then — they 


164  Our  Part  in  the  World 

heard  the  call  of  time.  The  ball  had  been  only  four 
yards  from  the  goal  posts,  but  the  other  side  had  not 
scored. 

That  evening  Dink  wandered  down  in  the  darkness 
to  the  field  to  think  it  all  over  again;  and  there  he 
found  McCarthy,  who  had  come  to  do  the  same 
thing.  ''Hullo,"  said  Tough,  ''that  was  a  great 
game."  "It  was  you  pulled  me  through,"  cried 
Stover.  "Rats!"  "It  was;  and,  Tough, — I  guess  we 
won't  have  any  fight  now."  "No — not  after  this." 
"But  what  did  we  have  a  grudge  for?"  wondered 
Stover.  "Why,  I  always  liked  you.  Dink,  but  you 
wouldn't  have  it."  "I  was  a  mean  little  varmint," 
cried  Stover.  And  then  the  school  rushed  down  over 
the  hill,  hunting  for  them,  and  carried  them  off  to 
be  cheered  with  the  rest  of  the  team  at  the  bonfire. 

As  he  went  to  sleep  that  night  Stover  thought: 
"How  bully  it  was!  And  Tough  McCarthy,  what  a 
bully  chap — bully!  We're  going  to  be  friends — ^pals! 
Everything    is    bully — everything!"* 

Our  enemies,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  are  the  very 
people  we  need.  We  can  never  succeed  in  football, 
in  politics,  in  social  work,  in  managing  a  household,  in 
caring  for  children  or  indeed  in  anything  else  until  all 
our  weak  spots  in  character  are  toughened  or  invulner- 
able. Our  enemies  are  just  the  people  who  find  out 
and  attack  us  in  our  weakest  spots.  They  keep  right  at 
it  until  we  have  grown  strong  in  that  spot  and  can  no 
longer  be  hurt  there.  I  know  a  girl  who  can't  stand 
being  criticised  or  ridiculed.  Naturally,  she  hates  the 
kind  of  people  who  seize  on  her  every  peculiarity  and 
hold  it  mercilessly  up  to  the  limelight.  Hateful  ene- 
mies! Yes,  but  for  that  very  reason  they  are  her  most 
useful  allies.  No  one  can  be  thoroughly  successful,  do 
any  remarkable  work,  or  hold  any  prominent  position 

*  The  Varmint,  by  Owen  Johnson,  pp.  283  and  287. 


Enemies  165 

without  being  criticised  up  and  down.  '  He  must  learn 
to  laugh  at  himself  quicker  than  others  laugh  at  him. 
He  must  learn  how  to  take  criticism;  not  merely  to 
take  it  coolly,  but  to  welcome  it  with  outstretched 
hands. 

Achilles  had  a  single  vulnerable  spot, — his  heel. 
Of  course  his  enemies  attacked  that  spot.  If  Achilles 
had  learned  early  from  the  assaults  of  his  foes,  he 
might  have  made  even  his  heel  in\Tjlnerable.  When 
Charles  Darwin  published  his  book.  The  Origin  of 
Species,  he  knew  that  it  would  be  violently  condemned 
on  all  sides.  It  was.  What  did  he  do?  He  kept 
the  most  careful  account  of  each  criticism,  so  that  the 
next  edition  of  his  book  would  have  the  benefit  o^ 
every  true  remark  that  the  enemies  of  his  views  had 
made.  It  is  much  more  important,  he  told  his  friends, 
to  know  what  is  said  against  your  book  than  what  is 
said  in  favor  of  it.  The  criticism  may  point  out  where 
you  are  weak. 

We  need  our  enemies,  then,  just  because  they  are 
peculiarly  trying.  ""What  trying  weather!"  people 
say  as  they  work  wearily  through  a  broiling  summer 
day.  Trying,  yes,  but  in  another  sense.  The  weather 
tries  and  thereby  tests  us.  Can  weather  dominate  us? 
Can  pain  make  us  u'ritable?  Does  wearing  less  good 
clothes  than  our  friends  trouble  us?  ^ATiy,  then  we 
still  need  trjdng  days,  illness,  pain,  and  poverty,  for 
these  enemies  are  still  unconquered.  "The  last  enemy 
that  shall  be  put  under  foot  is  death."  There  may 
come  a  time  when  we  do  not  need  death.  If  so,  it 
will  be  because  we  have  overcome  death  by  living 
here  and  now  within  immortal  life. 

Enemies,  then,  help  us  to  be  successful.  But  how 
can  they  ever  become  friends?  Back  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, even  in  the  often  sarcastic  book  of  Proverbs,  an 
early  and  true  answer  is  found.     "If  thine  enemy  be 


166  Our  Part  in  the  World 

hungry,  give  him  bread  to  eat;  and  if  he  be  thirsty,  give 
him  water  to  drink;  for  thou  wilt  heap  coals  of  fire 
upon  his  head"  (Proverbs  25:  21,  22).  Jesus  not  only 
told  us  to  love  our  enemies,  he  told  us  how  we  could 
do  it.  ''But  I  say  unto  you.  Love  your  enemies, 
bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you 
and  persecute  you"  (Matthew  5:44).  It  is  an 
extraordinary  fact  that  we  cannot  keep  on  steadily 
doing  good  to  an  enemy  and  still  hate  him.  If  you 
really  mean  to  love  your  enemy  don't  just  try  to  like 
him.  Think  up  what  it  is  he  wants  most  and  help  him 
to  get  it.  Gradually  you  will  find  that  the  mask  that 
covered  his  real  face  and  made  him  look  like  an  enemy 
has  fallen. 

Opportunities  to  transform  our  enemies  into  friends 
are  always  nearer  than  we  think.  In  Stevenson's  Kid- 
napped is  a  famous  scene  of  reconciliation  through 
music.  Alan  Stewart  was  a  bitter  enemy  to  Robin 
Macgregor.  The  feud  had  come  down  from  father 
to  son,  and  it  burst  into  flame  the  minute  that  Alan 
and  Robin  met.  Duncan  Dhu,  the  host  of  both, 
made  haste  to  intercept  the  contest  of  swords  by  pro- 
posing a  contest  of  bagpipes,  and  somewhat  sullenly 
the  two  youths  postponed  their  duel.  Robin  started 
the  contest  on  the  pipes,  and  Alan,  giving  but  a  faint 
breath  of  praise,  took  the  pipes  and  embroidered 
exquisitely  on  his  rival's  theme  in  a  series  of  warbling 
notes. 

"That's  no  very  bad,  Mr.  Stewart,"  said  his  rival. 
''You're  a  very  creditable  piper  for  a  Stewart."  And 
taking  the  pipes  he  greatly  improved  on  Alan's  theme. 
Alan's  face  grew  lowering  and  he  sat  and  gnawed  his 
nails,  bitterly  resenting  his  rival's  skill.  But  Robin 
did  not  end  with  exulting  over  his  victory.  Suddenly 
he  began  to  play  the  pibroch  that  all  Alan's  family  had 


Enemies  167 

loved,  and  to  play  it  with  consummate  skill.  Alan's 
face  changed,  and  before  the  music  had  gone  far  his 
anger  had  fled  before  its  magic.  "Robin,"  said  Alan, 
"ye  are  a  great  piper.  I  am  not  fit  to  blow  in  the 
same  kingdom  with  ye.  Body  of  me!  Ye  have  mail 
music  in  your  sporran  than  I  have  in  my  head.  And 
though  it  still  sticks  in  my  mind  that  I  could  maybe 
show  ye  another  of  it  with  the  cold  steel,  it'll  no  be 
fair.  It  would  go  against  my  heart  to  haggle  a  man 
that  can  blow  the  pipes  as  ye  can!"*  And  so  a 
current  from  far  above  the  combatants  swept  away 
their  enmity.  Against  the  force  of  sky-blown  music, 
petty  anger  had  no  hold.  Seen  in  its  laughable  little- 
ness, the  quarrel  was  soon  made  up. 

*  Kidnapped,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  chap.  xxv. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
MISFORTUNE  AS  OPPORTUNITY 

Can  a  very  great  misfortune  leave  us  with  a  better 
opportunity  to  succeed  than  we  had  before?  It  seems 
almost  impossible!  Yet  consider  the  case  of  Helen 
Keller.  Born  in  a  little  town  in  Alabama,  she  was, 
up  to  the  age  of  eighteen  months,  just  one  among 
thousands  of  healthy,  happy  babies.  Then  almost 
the  greatest  physical  handicap  conceivable  came  to 
her.  After  a  few  days  of  cerebral  meningitis,  she  came 
back  to  life  totally  blind  and  totally  deaf,  a  helpless, 
speechless  baby,  groping  her  way  in  a  darkened  world. 
An  appalling  misfortune  it  must  have  seemed  to  her 
parents.  They  may  have  felt  at  times  that  it  would 
have  been  better  for  her  if  she  had  not  lived  through 
the  scourging  fever.  And  yet  it  seems  to  me  almost 
impossible  that  Helen  Keller  without  her  heavy  handi- 
cap could  have  had  anything  like  the  chances  she  has 
had  with  it.  She  would  probably  have  grown  up 
ambitious,  happy,  and  a  talented  writer,  but  she 
could  have  had  nothing  to  tell  so  poignant,  enlighten- 
ing, and  stimulating  as  what  she  has  written  in  her 
autobiography  and  in  The  World  I  Live  In.  For  Helen 
Keller  lives  in  a  mysterious  world.  All  of  us  want  to 
know  what  very  few  of  those  within  its  dark,  still 
walls  can  tell. 

She  writes  gaily:  ''But  while  other  self-recording 
creatures  are  permitted  at  least  to  seem  to  change 
the  subject,  apparently  nobody  cares  what  I  think 
of  the  tariff,  the  conservation  of  our  natural  resources, 
or  the  conflicts  which  revolve  about  the  name  of 
Dreyfus.     If  I  offer  to  reform  the  educational  system 


Misfortujie  as  Opportunity  169 

of  the  world,  my  editorial  friends  say,. 'That  is  inter- 
esting. But  will  you  please  tell  us  what  idea  you 
had  of  goodness  and  beauty  when  you  were  six  years 
old?'"*  Whatever  Helen  Keller  writes  of  her  ex- 
perience is  accepted  by  any  publisher  because  she  is 
famous  as  the  valiant  conqueror  of  a  great  handicap. 
There  is  no  doubt,  then,  that  she  is  far  more  widely 
and  eagerly  known  than  she  could  have  been  without 
her  burden. 

Fame  and  popularity  are  much-desired  gifts,  but 
friendship  with  the  noblest  is  an  even  greater  privilege, 
and  this  her  handicap  and  her  overcoming  of  it  have 
won  Miss  Keller.  Among  her  truly  intimate  friends 
were  Phillips  Brooks,  most  eloquent  preacher,  Alex- 
ander G.  Bell,  inventor  of  the  telephone,  and  Samuel 
G.  Howe,  the  devoted  helper  of  the  blind.  She  met 
Edward  Everett  Hale  frequently  and  he  was  keenly 
interested  in  her.  Had  she  been  but  a  healthy  South- 
ern girl,  in  all  probability  these  great  men  would  never 
have  heard  of  her. 

Everyone,  too,  cares  to  light  an  unquenchable  flame 
of  hope,  to  stand  as  an  example  of  difficulties  over- 
come. When  other  blind  or  deaf  girls  and  boys  hear 
that  Helen  Keller  was  graduated  cum  laude  at  Radcliff  e, 
has  learned  to  speak  in  public  and  to  earn  her  living, 
they  follow  their  leader  with  renewed  confidence. 
With  these  three  gifts  of  fame,  friendship,  and  influ- 
ence, I  believe  that,  in  spite  of  all  she  is  cut  off  from, 
Helen  Keller  is  better  oiT,  nobler,  and  probably  happier 
than  if  no  misfortune  had  crossed  her  path. 

In  Bordeaux,  France,  a  young  Spanish  girl  had 
both  her  hands  so  injured  in  an  accident  that  her 
arms  had  to  be  cut  off  near  the  elbow  joint.  She  is 
now  so  proficient,  in  spite  of  the  injury,  that  she  is 
employed  as  teacher  in  a  large  school  for  wounded 

*  The  World  I  Live  In,  by  Helen  Keller,  The  Century  Co.,  pp.  11-12. 


170  Our  Part  in  the  World 

soldiers  similarly  handicapped.  What  she  can  do 
with  these  stumps  is  astonishing  and  inspiring.  She 
threads  a  needle,  sews,  writes  quite  beautifully,  in  fact 
does  many  things  that  you  think  of  as  being  done  only 
by  a  normal  pair  of  hands.  But  still  more  valuable, 
says  the  director  of  the  school,  is  her  extraordinary 
spirit  of  courage  which  permeates  the  workroom  and 
radiates  hope  and  reassurance  to  thousands  of  crippled 
soldiers. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  misfortune:  war,  illness, 
poverty,  failure,  sin,  the  death  of  our  beloved.  Can 
good  come  out  of  any  one  of  these?  From  any  event 
good  can  come  if,  God  helping  us,  we  will  that  it  shall. 
Much  good  has  been  mingled  with  the  evil  of  war. 
War  is  hell,  but  it  is  hell  shot  through  with  redeeming 
rays  from  heaven.  You  have  heard  many  stories  of 
the  bravery,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  patriotism  shown 
by  common  men  and  women  in  the  world  war  that 
began  in  1914.  These  stories  are  all  the  more  pre- 
cious because  they  are  not  exceptional.  They  are 
like  water  gushing  from  a  rock. 

All  through  history  there  have  been  illustrations  of 
this  great  truth:  good  does  not  come  out  of  evil, 
but  out  of  the  effort  to  overcome  evil.  Paul  DuBois 
considers  it  an  overwhelming  misfortune  for  his  chil- 
dren that  they  are  negroes,  cut  off  from  many  prized 
opportunities  for  work,  for  position,  for  recreation, 
for  social  equality.  Yes,  it  is  hard  for  them,  but  not 
impossibly  hard.  Booker  T.  Washington  felt  his  own 
lot  an  uphill  road  at  first,  but  being  a  man  of  unflinch- 
ing purpose  he  brought  himself  to  rejoice  that  he  was 
born  a  negro  and  a  slave,  because  thereby  he  could 
the  better  help  his  race.  Could  he  have  been  as  dis- 
tinguished a  man,  or  made  the  nation  as  proud  to  own 
him,  had  he  been  white? 


Misfortune  as  Opportunity  171 

Another  kind  of  evil  is  sin.  Can  any  good  come 
out  of  hurtful  but  bitterly  repented  wrongdoing?  In- 
deed it  can  if  one  has  persistent  courage.  Any  re- 
pentant wrongdoer  has  an  extraordinary  power  of 
appeal  to  those  who  need  help.  In  Harold  Begbie's 
Twice  Born  Men  you  can  read  story  after  story  of  the 
special  vigor  and  usefulness  of  men  made  over,  reformed, 
and  using  their  sordid  past  as  a  proof  that  God  can  save 
even  those  most  degraded.  I  once  knew  a  very  popular 
boy  who  was  nominated  to  be  president  of  the  George 
Junior  Repubhc,  a  self-governing  settlement  for  boys 
and  girls  at  Freeville,  New  York.  Much  to  every- 
one's surprise  Dan  refused  the  nomination.  Soon 
after,  he  came  to  Mr.  William  George,  Jr.,  director 
of  the  Republic,  and  told  him  the  reason  for  his  refusal. 
Dan  had  committed  a  crime  and  had  never  confessed 
it.  It  seemed  to  him  that  to  accept  the  nomination 
for  president  before  he  had  told  of  his  misdeed  was 
wrong.  After  making  his  confession  Dan  was  deter- 
mined to  make  good.  He  was  not  satisfied  until  his 
guilt  was  more  than  fully  atoned  for,  as  one  pays  back 
a  long-standing  debt, — principal  and  compound  inter- 
est. By  confessing  his  sin  and  atoning  for  it  he  threw 
out  many  a  stumbhng-stone  from  the  path  of  others. 

You  will  notice  in  reading  the  Gospels  that  Jesus 
often  seems  especially  hopeful  about  repentant  sinners, 
and  correspondingly  anxious  about  complacent  people. 
Jesus  knew  that  along  with  genuine  and  thorough- 
going repentance  goes  memory,  and  to  this  memory 
he  could  appeal  with  entire  hope. 

In  that  marvelous  scene  at  the  temple,  when  a  woman 
who  had  sinned  was  brought  before  him  trembling, 
expecting  to  be  condemned  and  stoned  to  death,  we 
have  a  picture  as  vivid  and  unforgetable  as  if  drawn 
by  Raphael.  Unheeding  the  angry  tumult,  Jesus 
stooped  down  as  though  he  heard  them  not  and  wrote 


172  Our  Part  in  the  World 

with  his  finger  upon  the  dusty  ground.  We  shall 
never  know  what  he  wrote,  but  we  know  what  he  said 
when  at  last  he  looked  up:  ''He  that  is  without  sin 
among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her." 

Then  memory  began  to  gnaw  at  the  conscience  of 
everyone  present,  and  one  by  one  they  stole  away. 
No  one  among  them  could  throw  that  stone,  nor 
could  anyone  among  us.  Jesus  was  left  absolutely 
alone  with  the  woman.  And  he,  pure  from  sin,  would 
not  judge  her  as  evil,  because  he  believed  she  could 
become  good.  ''Neither  do  I  condemn  thee:  go,  and 
sin  no  more."  Could  she  ever  forget  those  words  of 
amazing  trust? 


CH.\PTER  XXXVIII 
MAKING  THE  BEST  OF  IT 

We  have  all  known  people  who  seem  pursued  by 
hard  luck.  Whenever  they  travel  it  is  wretched 
weather, — too  hot,  or  too  cold;  every  hotel  is  uncom- 
fortable, the  food  is  poor,  the  beds  hard.  When 
they  go  to  the  theatre  the  plays  are  invariably  worth- 
less, the  novels  they  persistently  read  are  trashy,  the 
people  they  meet  are  commonplace.  I  cannot  but  pity 
these  unlucky  acquaintances;  they  certainly  have  a 
hard  time. 

One  day  a  friend  of  mine  happened  to  go  with 
people  of  this  sort  on  one  of  their  depressing  journeys, 
and,  strange  to  say,  she  found  everything  different. 
The  dreadful  weather  was  to  her  a  delicate,  refreshing 
drizzle.  The  coimtry  inn  did,  indeed,  have  hard  beds, 
but  she  forgot  to  mention  that  fact  because  she  was 
so  eager  to  tell  about  the  romantic  charm  of  the  low- 
studded  rooms  with  their  uneven  floors,  their  high 
canopied  beds,  and  their  great  fireplaces.  "I  have 
never  been  to  a  place  more  stimulating  to  one's  imagi- 
nation," she  wrote.  ''The  country-folk  are  so  quaint 
and  humorous  that  everything  they  said  was  just  what 
I  wanted  for  the  setting  of  my  story  on  New  England 
village  life."  She  came  away  exhilarated  by  an 
experience  that  bored  and  depressed  her  companions. 

I  remember  the  surprise  I  felt  when  first  it  occurred 
to  me  that  after  all  it  might  possibly  be  people  them- 
selves who  made  their  own  good  or  evil  fortune,  or 
rather,  who  made  the  best  or  the  worst  out  of  it. 
Experience  comes  to  us,  as  it  were,  like  flour  or  dough. 


174  Our  Part  in  the  Wwld 

Our  task  is  to  knead  it  into  the  shape  we  desire,  to 
heat  it  by  our  ardent  will  till  it  becomes  food  for  our 
life. 

How  to  take  the  experience  before  us,  whatever  it  is, 
and  make,  wring,  or  coax,  the  best  that  then  and  there 
can  be  got  out  of  it  or  of  ourselves, — this  is  my  topic. 
It  is  an  impelling  and  a  chastening  subject.  It  is  im- 
pelling because  the  transforming  attitude,  wherever  it  is 
found,  is  the  characteristic  human  attitude.  A  cork 
drifts  with  the  tide  out  to  sea;  a  man  swims  with  the 
current  or  against  it,  going  always  toward  his  goal. 
He  uses  the  tide,  if  possible;  if  not,  he  swims  the 
harder  because  of  its  resistance.  The  transformation 
of  experience  is  a  chastening  subject  because  in  attack- 
ing it  we  must  face  the  hardest  and  most  bewildering 
tragedies.  There  are  experiences  that  seem  beyond  our 
power  to  understand.  There  are  instances  of  deaden- 
ing sorrow,  of  hopeless  infirmity,  of  shattered  beauty, 
of  degrading  surroundings.  The  lepers  alone  in  their 
misery,  the  crushed  lives  of  sodden  workers,  the 
innocent  sufferers  from  disgusting  disease,  the  artist 
beholding  the  destruction  of  his  life  work  in  a  fire, 
the  sensitive  woman  whose  duty  forces  her  into  asso- 
ciation for  life  with  a  drunken  husband, — these  trag- 
edies cannot  be  forgotten;  the  weight  of  their  sorrow 
can  with  difficulty,  if  at  all,  be  made  a  source  of 
strength  to  come.  Yet  whenever  a  human  being  is  in 
any  degree  himself,  there  becomes  possible  the  trans- 
formation of  experience;  there  man  can  prove  his 
manhood. 

What  happens  to  anyone  may  be  compared  to  his 
possession  of  a  millstone.  The  question  always  is, 
"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  millstone?"  One 
man  fastens  the  millstone  around  his  neck  and  it  con- 
tinually weighs  him  down.  Another  man  takes  the 
same  millstone  and  by  it  as  a  stepping-stone  lifts 


Making  the  Best  of  It  175 

himself  toward  his  goal.  What  the  world  calls  success 
or  what  it  considers  to  be  failure  may  be  a  weight 
to  drag  us  down  or  a  stepping-stone  to  lift  us  up. 
A  young  Westerner  who  entered  Harvard  College 
some  years  ago  became  at  once  a  leader  through  his 
brilliant  football  playing,  his  easy  mastery  of  the  re- 
quired work,  his  geniality  toward  everyone  he  met. 
During  his  four  years  in  college  the  eyes  of  all  his 
httle  world  watched  hmi.  He  was  applauded  for 
every  good  deed,  admired,  trusted.  His  future  was 
talked  of  as  inevitably  a  remarkable  one.  At  the 
close  of  his  college  course  any  number  of  positions 
were  open  to  him.  He  chose  one,  but  it  did  not 
satisfy  his  ambition.  In  six  months  he  threw  it  up 
to  try  something  wholly  different.  A  year  or  two 
later  this,  too,  ceased  to  satisfy,  and  now  for  some 
months  he  has  been  vainly  seeking  employment.  ''It 
seems  strange  that  he  has  not  found  a  place,"  com- 
mented a  stranger;  ''has  he  had  any  obstacles  against 
him?"  "Yes,  indeed,"  was  the  reply;  "when  he 
left  college  he  was  so  much  admired  that  the  most 
distinguished  business  men  in  Boston  besieged  hun 
with  offers  of  a  position.  A  man  could  hardly  meet  a 
greater  obstacle  than  that!"  For,  as  the  speaker 
realized,  this  young  man  was  in  appalling  danger  of 
becoming  satisfied  with  himself  and  critical  of  others. 
His  too-easy  success  will  become  a  millstone  to  drag 
him  down  unless  he  can  learn  to  turn  it  into  a  stepping- 
stone  toward  a  higher  ideal. 

In  like  manner  what  the  world  calls  hard  luck  may 
be  transformed  into  the  best  of  fortune.  A  young 
normal  school  graduate  went  a  few  years  ago  to  take 
charge  of  an  ungraded  room  in  a  country  school. 
The  class  was  mixed  in  age  and  in  attaimnent,  the 
children  had  had  no  systematic  work,  and,  worst  of 
all,  it  had  become  ahnost  a  tradition  among  them 


176  Our  Part  in  the  Wcn-ld 

that  everyone  should  behave  just  as  badly  as  possible. 
Everyone  naturally  thought  that  my  friend  had  hard 
luck.  I  saw  her  after  she  had  been  there  two  weeks 
and  she  looked  worn  but  resolute.  She  had  no  ten- 
dency to  blame  the  children;  she  insisted  that  if  she 
made  her  lessons  interesting  enough  they  would 
listen  and  learn.  I  saw  her  again  a  month  later  and 
she  had  conquered.  She  had  divided  the  class  and 
thereby  improved  the  grading.  She  had  succeeded 
in  making  history  and  geography  interesting.  She 
had  given  special  responsibilities  to  the  most  unruly 
boys  and  had  won  their  esteem.  The  more  dejected 
girls,  who  threw  up  their  hands  in  despair  over  arith- 
metic, had  been  invited  to  her  room  and  in  its  quiet 
atmosphere  she  had  solved  their  difficulties.  She  had 
won  the  affection  and  the  allegiance  of  almost  every 
pupil.  And  not  only  this;  through  that  chastening 
experience  she  had  gained  a  power  of  discipline,  an 
ingenuity  of  resource,  that  no  easy  class  could  have 
given  her.  That  for  which  we  were  tempted  to  pity 
her  had  become  through  her  own  resolution  and  faith, 
and  through  the  insight  born  of  need,  a  stimulating 
opportunity.  The  failure  of  my  athlete  who  had 
''good  luck"  and  the  success  of  my  teacher  who  had 
''hard  luck"  show  how  much  depends  on  the  way 
we  take  the  events  that  the  days  bring. 

The  spirit  in  which  we  meet  any  experience  may  be 
cheery,  good-humored,  easy-going,  without  being  an- 
imating; that  is,  without  creating  a  soul,  making  new 
life  out  of  the  crude  material.  There  are  in  every 
community  happy-go-lucky  people  off  whom  experi- 
ence slips  like  melting  snow  off  a  steep  roof.  They 
are  congenial  and  attractive  companions,  but  just 
because  nothing  that  happens  greatly  affects  their 
equanimity,  they  are  not  among  those  who  grow  and 
who  create.     This  easy-going  quality  has  its  charm 


Making  the  Best  of  It  177 

and  its  comfort,  but  the  qualitj^  that  out  of  misfortune 
or  of  joy  makes  a  new  opportunity  is  the  quality  of 
genius. 

After  the  earthquake  of  April  18,  1906,  in  San 
Francisco,  two  hundred  thousand  people  were  gath- 
ered in  the  Presidio,  an  open  government  park.  Some 
of  them  were  in  despair  over  their  lot.  "Oh,  dear," 
they  moaned,  "isn't  it  awful?  Whatever  can  we  do? 
What  if  there  should  be  another  earthquake?  Sup- 
pose the  fire  should  reach  us  here?"  These  natural 
moanings  simply  delayed  and  disheartened.  Other 
people  took  the  appalling  situation  good-humoredly 
but  showed  no  initiative  in  piecing  together  again  the 
scattered  fragments  of  their  lives.  For  weeks  they 
hved  on  charity,  went  day  by  day  to  beg  for  food  and 
clothing,  and  could  hardly  be  driven  from  the  park 
when  it  was  once  more  time  to  take  up  their  own 
burdens.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  during  the 
fire  tlu^illing  instances  of  foresighted,  dauntless  in- 
genuity. A  little  settlement  of  Italians  on  Telegraph 
Hill  saved  their  houses  from  destruction,  when  water 
could  not  be  procured,  by  putting  out  each  spark  as  it 
fell,  with  towels  soaked  in  their  native  wines.  One 
j'oung  officer  alone  in  the  chaos  of  that  bewildering 
morning  broke  into  a  deserted  bakeshop  and  secured 
bread  for  the  starving  people  at  the  Presidio,  escorted 
a  number  of  murderers  from  the  shattered  prison  to  a 
place  of  safety  and  restraint;  destroyed  a  large 
quantity  of  intoxicating  liquor,  and  rescued  from  the 
burning  art  gallery  a  number  of  precious  pictures. 
The  experiences  of  that  terrible  morning  were  mani- 
fold. At  its  close  the  weariness  caused  by  despair 
contrasted  with  the  weariness  caused  by  heroic  efTort 
and  marked  the  difference  between  the  passive  and  the 
constructive  attitude  in  misfortune. 

There  are,  then,  these  various  ways  in  which  the 


178  Our  Part  in  the  World 

hard  experiences  of  life  may  be  met.  There  is  the 
passive  attitude,  shown  by  depression  or  by  content- 
ment, and  there  is  the  constructive  attitude,  which  is 
recognized  by  its  readiness  to  meet  the  unforeseen; 
by  its  ingenuity,  its  self-reUance  and  its  sympathy. 
The  extreme  experiences  of  hfe  hght  up  these  varying 
attitudes  as  the  fires  that  followed  the  earthquake 
lighted  up  the  city  of  San  Francisco. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
OUR  PART  IN  THE  PLAN 

When  Lincoln  Steffens  was  traveling  some  years  ago 
tlirough  the  Catskill  Mountains  he  got  into  conversa- 
tion with  a  raih'oad  employe  and  spoke  to  him  admir- 
ingly of  the  scenery  along  the  Hudson  River.  ''It's 
well  enough,"  the  brakeman  agreed,  ''but  it's  not  nearly 
so  beautiful  as  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station. 
That's  got  finish,  and  there's  not  much  finish  in  nature. 
I  helped  build  that  station;  it  was  great  seeing  it  grow. 
There's  another  reason  I  like  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road station  best,  and  that's  because  a  man  really 
worked  it  out.  Why,  it  must  have  been  just  an  idea 
in  his  head  once.  But,"  he  mused  regretfully,  "the 
workmen  weren't  told  about  the  plan  of  the  building. 
I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  every  workman  will 
be  shown  the  plan." 

In  this  book  I  have  tried  as  best  I  knew  how,  to 
make  a  rough  sketch  of  The  Plan.  To  know  the  plan 
and  to  have  some  part,  small  or  great,  in  carrying  it 
out, — everyone  feels  this  need  in  his  work  and  his  life. 
But  is  it  not  an  even  greater  need  in  relation  to  the 
meaning  of  the  universe?  If  we  could  both  know  what 
it  is  for  and  do  our  bit  to  help  it  grow,  that  surely 
would  be  an  immense  satisfaction.  That  there  is  some 
plan  and  that  we  are  a  working  part  of  it,  is  certain, 
though  the  details  of  it  that  look  important  to  our 
short-sighted  eyes  may  not  be  essential.  For  think, 
if  the  laborers  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  station 
had  been  shown  the  architect's  plan,  would  they  have 
understood  more  than  a  very  small  part  of  it?  No 
more  can  we  understand  the  richly  intricate  plan  of 


180  Our  Part  in  the  World 

the  Universe,  though  we  do,  I  beheve,  recognize  it 
at  those  points  where,  through  the  telescope  of  love 
or  the  microscope  of  our  chosen  work,  we  see  most 
clearly.  Would  not  any  of  us  stake  our  lives  on  the 
faith  that  friendship  was  a  part  of  the  world  plan? 

At  other  places  the  outline  of  the  plan  looks  faint 
or  twisted.  The  skeleton  lines  of  war,  of  death,  of 
innocent  suffering,  of  pestilence,  of  starvation  in  mind 
and  body, — these  designs  in  the  plan  of  the  world 
look  wrong.  It  is  only  by  flashes  of  a  stronger  light 
thrown  on  the  whole  that  we  see  what  these  tragedies 
may  mean.  Yet  that  there  is  a  meaning,  even  in 
these  tragedies,  is  sure,  since  the  meaningless  is  the 
unreal  and  tragedy  is  surely  real.  After  all,  would 
it  not  be  a  dull,  standstill  kind  of  world  if  every  whipper- 
snapper  could  see  right  through  it? 

An  old  veteran  of  the  Civil  War  was  telling,  fifty 
years  later,  his  story  of  a  strange  order  given  out  one 
night  by  his  commanding  officer.  ' '  The  Yankee  troops 
were  besieged  by  Johnston,  the  Confederate  general  in 
Chattanooga,"  he  said,  ''and  General  Sherman  was 
coming  to  relieve  us.  Well,  sir,  the  very  night  that 
Sherman  was  to  arrive,  we  were  ordered  to  march  out 
of  the  city  in  full  sight  of  the  enemy  and  pass  behind 
the  mountain.  Before  dawn  we  were  ordered  to 
march  right  plumb  back  to  the  city  we  started  from. 
I  thought  for  sure  General  Hooker  had  lost  his  nerve 
in  ordering  that  retreat.  It  wasn't  till  thirty  years 
afterwards  that  I  saw  what  happened.  We  were 
marched  out  of  the  city  so  that  the  Rebs  would  think 
we  had  retreated  before  General  Sherman  arrived. 
Then,  thinking  we  were  gone,  the  enemy  would  feel 
strong  enough  to  attack  next  morning,  but  by  that 
time  we  were  back  again  in  force.  It  was  all  part  of 
a  plan." 

In  this  case  the  soldier  had  been  an  essential  part 


Our  Part  in  the  Plan  181 

of  the  plan  and  had  gone  sturdily  through  what  seemed 
a  senseless  task,  tlimking  it  a  failure  when  it  was  a 
triumph.  Thirty  years  later,  in  view  of  the  whole 
campaign,  he  saw  liis  part  in  it.  For  himself  and  his 
comrades  in  the  ranks,  a  night's  march  round  the 
mountain  and  back  looked  like  unnecessary  hiking. 
Not  so  to  the  general  in  command.  Our  experience 
must  often  and  inevitably  be  like  that  of  the  private 
in  the  ranks.  We  know  roughly  and  with  gaps  the 
outline  of  the  plan.  We  know  that  God  sustains  and 
guides  the  Universe  toward  its  own  fulfillment.  We 
know  that  He  needs  us  sometimes  as  direct  helpers, 
sometimes,  it  may  be,  as  faithful  failures,  occasionally 
as  a  warning  to  others:  ''Do  not  take  this  path." 
Within  this  general  plan  of  the  Universe  we  see  certain 
things  that  have  to  normal  men  and  women  every- 
where seemed  good,  worth  living  for,  worth  dying  for. 
Look  rapidly  through  the  centuries.  What  have  men 
seen  as  truly  good,  truly  a  part  of  the  plan?  Their 
families,  their  clan,  their  friends,  their  city,  their 
nation,  their  special  interest,  their  churches,  the  great 
cathedrals,  beauty  in  nature,  music,  painting,  poetry, 
stained  glass,  laughter,  kindness,  the  discovery  of 
truth,  opportunities  to  help,  and  finally  the  hope  of 
immortality,  the  passion  that  all  that  is  good  shall 
remain. 

Whenever  you  read  a  great  book,  you  will  find  in  it 
the  love  of  some  one  or  more  of  these  things.  Do 
novels  touch  them?  Why,  surely!  George  Meredith 
thought  of  his  novels  as  so  sketching  the  struggle  and 
growth  of  human  nature  that  they  would  help  people 
to  understand  one  another.  He  said  his  central  hope 
and  aim  was  to  make  a  bridge  over  which  future  gen- 
erations could  cross  and  reach  a  deeper  understanding. 
Tolstoi  went  so  far  as  to  think  that  novels  were  only 
good  when  they  directly  helped  people   to  love   and 


182  Our  Part  in  the  World 

serve  one  another  better.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
names  as  the  three  greatest  things  in  the  world: 
''Health,  work  and,  O  ye  gods,  friends."  Romain 
RoUand,  the  talented  French  writer,  puts  art  as  the 
greatest  of  human  goods.  ''A  work  of  art  like  Rheims 
cathedral  is  far  more  than  a  human  life,  it  is  a  whole 
people.  Through  this  organ  of  stone  the  centuries 
tremble  like  a  symphony.  The  cathedral  holds  its 
memories  of  joy,  of  glory,  of  suffering,  its  meditations, 
its  ironic  laughter,  its  dreams.  It  is  the  tree  of  the 
race,  whose  roots  plunge  to  the  depths  of  the  soil  and 
with  a  marvelous  spring,  stretch  their  arms  toward  the 
sky.  But  the  cathedral  is  more  than  this.  Its  beauty, 
uplifted  far  above  the  conflicts  of  nations,  is  the  har- 
monious answer  of  the  human  spirit  to  the  mystery 
of  life, — it  is  the  light  of  the  mind,  more  essential  to 
the  soul  than  the  light  of  the  Sun."  * 

It  is  thus  that  in  their  different  ways  great  men  in 
all  times  and  places  point  to  the  plan  of  the  world. 
Like  a  lantern-bearer  passing  through  the  darkness 
of  a  thick  forest,  great  men  light  the  path  around 
them,  and  we  see.  All  of  us  get  blinded  by  custom. 
The  seers  of  our  race  recognize  and  point  out  the  plan, 
as  the  trained  eye  of  an  Indian  observes  and  points 
out  the  horns  of  a  deer,  seen  through  blurring  branches. 

''The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for 
the  Sabbath,"  Jesus  said.  It  was  a  new  vision,  but 
once  pointed  out,  the  eyes  of  all  can  follow  and  behold 
its  truth.  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 
Again  Jesus  pointed  to  the  plan  of  the  Universe. 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  God." 
This  among  all  the  Beatitudes  is  the  ultimate  blessing. 
The  wholly  pure  shall  see  the  Holy  Plan. 

*  Homain  Holland,  Above  the  Battle. 


CHAPTER  XL 
IMMORTALITY 

In  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  is  a  marble 
group  called  "Death  and  the  Sculptor."  The  young 
sculptor  is  keenly  at  work  on  an  unfinished  bas-relief. 
He  is  eager,  happy,  making  beauty  from  chaos.  Stand- 
ing near  him  is  the  figure  of  Death,  and  his  hand  is 
stretched  out  to  snatch  the  sculptor  from  his  task. 
You  would  expect  the  angel  of  Death  to  be  modeled 
as  cruel.  No,  it  is  drawn  as  relentless  yet  compas- 
sionate. I  know  no  other  statue  that  makes  one  stop 
and  think  as  this  one  does.  Can  death  be  right  when 
it  puts  an  end  to  an  unfinished  task?  What  has 
become  of  the  hopes  and  plans  of  all  the  young  artists, 
musicians,  scientists,  discoverers,  poets,  who  lie  dead 
on  the  fields  of  Flanders?  What  power  has  death 
over  the  soul?  "If  a  man  die  shall  he  live  again" 
and  fulfill  his  task? 

Too  great  questions  are  these  to  answer  in  the  short 
space  of  five  or  six  pages,  yet  too  important,  I  believe, 
to  leave  untouched  in  a  book  on  Our  Part  in  the  World, 
for  our  part  depends  in  large  measure  on  the  possi- 
bility that  both  w^hat  we  do  and  what  we  are  lasts. 
Let  us  consider  first,  then,  a  few  of  the  questions  that 
center  about  the  relation  of  body  and  soul.  Body  is 
not  inseparably  connected  with  soul.  Clearly  we  can 
and  do  lose  much  of  our  body  wdth  little  or  no  change 
in  what  we  call  ourselves.  Notice  how  in  daily  ways 
bits  of  our  bodies  pass  from  us  almost  without  our 
notice.  Loss  of  tissues,  of  hair,  of  flakes  of  skin  leave 
us  quite  unconcerned.  Every  seven  years,  we  are 
told  by  some  authorities,  our  entire  body  is  changed. 


184  Our  Part  in  the  World 

Whether  or  not  this  is  accurate,  our  body  is  changing 
all  the  time,  yet  we  are  the  same  person.  Losing  the 
body,  then,  is  not  dying.  Something  beyond  this 
body  ma.kes  you  yourself.  Does  this  mean  that  we 
need  no  bodies  in  order  to  be  ourselves?  No.  I 
believe  that  some  body  we  must  have,  but  it  need 
not  be  woven  of  perishable  flesh.  The  kind  of  body 
we  need  may  be  what  St,  Paul  calls  "sl  spiritual  body," 
— that  is,  something  by  which  and  in  which  to  express 
ourselves.  As  the  world  is  the  embodiment  of  God's 
thought  and  as  without  this  embodiment  or  some 
other  God  would  not  be  real  to  us,  so  it  seems  to  me 
that  some  outward  embodiment  or  expression  of  our- 
selves will  always  remain,  though  in  what  form  we 
cannot  tell. 

Since,  however,  our  entire  body  can  gradually  change 
and  we  remain  the  same  person,  we  need  not  fear  that 
bodily  death  will  deprive  us  of  life.  Why  is  death 
terrifying?  I  think  that  what  chiefly  terrifies  us  is 
that  when  we  picture  our  own  death,  we  think  of  our- 
selves as  at  once  alive  and  dead.  We  try  furtively 
to  watch  our  dead  selves,  which  naturally  shows  that 
we  still  think  of  ourselves  as  alive.  And  that  paradox 
hghts  up  the  very  interesting  fact  that  we  cannot 
really  conceive  ourselves  as  dead.  A  shadowy  self  al- 
ways watches  my  passive  body  and  that  self  is  actively 
alive.  It  is  equally  true  that  while  we  speak  of  our 
friends  as  dead  we  almost  never  think  of  them  as 
dead.  They  are  away  from  us,  perhaps  never  to  be 
seen  again.  We  know  that  their  bodies  lie  in  the  ground, 
but  the  more  we  love  them  and  the  stronger  their 
individuality,  the  more  we  instinctively  think  of 
them  as  alive  and  active.  Indeed  I  doubt  whether, 
if  they  have  been  a  part  of  ourselves,  we  can  truly 
think  of  them  as  dead,  for  to  be  dead  is  to  be  unreal 
and  they  are  real. 


Immortality  185 

The  Buddhists  think  of  the  dead  as  passing  from 
form  to  form,  bound  to  the  wheel  of  life  and  carried 
on  its  unending  turns  from  one  existence  to  another. 
The  Buddhist  dreads,  not  death,  but  undesirable  life. 
"He  might  awake  as  a  noxious  serpent,  feared  and 
hated,  with  a  price  set  upon  his  head.  He  might 
live  again  as  a  beast  of  burden,  the  slave  of  some 
ignorant  or  brutal  master.  He  might  inhabit  the 
body  of  some  deformed  or  crippled  specimen  of  human- 
ity, the  beggar  nursing  his  sores  by  the  wayside,  eking 
out  a  precarious  livelihood  from  the  charity  of  the 
passers-by.  The  one  thing  certain  was  that  the  life 
to  come  would  be  no  finality."  * 

Not  a  pleasant  outlook,  this,  yet,  like  the  happier 
conception  of  purgatory,  it  shows  how  tenacious  is  the 
belief  that  life  is  eternal,  and  death,  in  spite  of  all  ap- 
pearances, unreal. 

So  far  I  have  tried  to  show  that,  though  the  death 
of  the  body  is  all  about  us,  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
in  ultimate  death.  What  does  it  mean  that  we  cannot 
truly  think  of  ourselves  as  dead?  It  means  that,  strictly 
speaking,  we  cannot  think  away  existence.  Do  you 
remember  that  in  the  first  chapter  I  said  that  we  could 
not  think  of  the  uncreated  world  without  thinking 
of  it  as  a  plan  known  to  God?  So  our  lives  are  held  in 
God's  thought,  and  therefore  death  is  not  wholly 
death,  for  God  holds  even  that  apparent  death  in  the 
life  of  His  thought.  You  cannot  think  of  creation  out 
of  nothing,  neither  can  you  think  of  life  dying  down  to 
nothing.  Both  are  inconceivable.  Beginning  means 
God's  plan.  Ending,  too,  means  God's  plan.  We  can- 
not think  away  God,  and  therefore  we  cannot  think  of 
the  complete  vanishing  of  consciousness  from  the  world. 

But  are  we  individually  worth  keeping?  May  we 
not  be  merged  in  God  as  a  drop  in  the  sea?    Or  may 

*  The  Christian  Hope,  by  William  A.  Brown,  p.  9. 


186  Our  Part  in  the  World 

it  be  that  He  can  be  Himself  without  us?  No,  this 
is  impossible.  God  needs  the  ministers  of  His  plan, 
His  expression  in  the  world.  If  you  were  to  make  a 
pencil  map  of  France  and  then  rub  out  every  village, 
city,  river,  hill  and  bay,  France  would  no  longer  be 
itself.  So  reverently  we  can  say  that  God  would  not 
be  Himself  unless  He  were  expressed  through  His 
children.  If  we  are  doing  our  part  in  the  world  in 
our  own  way  and  to  our  utmost,  I  believe  that  God 
needs  us  and  will  keep  us.  As  a  mother  away  from 
her  children  feels  lonely  and  unlike  herself,  so  I  believe 
God,  the  life  of  the  whole  world,  needs  the  children 
He  has  made.  One  of  the  strongest  reasons  for  belief 
in  immortality  is  this:  We  cannot  believe  that  God, 
who  made  what  we  are  surest  is  of  value,  made  it 
just  to  throw  it  away.  No  maid  throws  out  the 
dishes  with  the  dish-water,  no  sculptor  throws  away 
the  statue  with  the  plaster  mould,  and  no  true  father 
decides  his  child  is  too  much  of  a  burden  to  keep. 
God,  whose  hope  for  us  is  everlasting,  God  to  whom 
the  least  of  these  is  precious  for  its  special  gift,  will 
not  leave  His  children  to  perish  in  the  grave. 

Emerson  once  put  this  evidence  for  immortality  in 
a  concise  form. 

"What  is  excellent, 
As  God  lives,  is  permanent." 

Belief  in  immortality  is  linked  to  belief  in  God  and 
His  will  to  hold  whatever  is  good  in  His  safe-keeping. 
Yet  even  when  we  are  assured  beyond  doubt  of  im- 
mortality, something  that  is  best  in  us  remains  un- 
satisfied. Immortality  is  too  great  a  treasure  to  re- 
ceive as  a  gift.  We  want  to  win  it  by  being  worthy 
of  it.  How  can  we  be?  I  said  that  each  person,  when 
he  is  doing  his  work,  is  needed  in  the  whole.  But  sup- 
pose our  choice  of  service  is  one  that  no  one  else  can 


Immortality  187 

perform  in  quite  the  same  way,  and  one  that  requires 
infinite  time.  Then  we  are  needed  forever.  Have 
you  any  such  infinite  aim?  At  first  it  seems  unHkely. 
But  what  is  it  you  want?  To  play  tennis  perfectly, 
to  be  a  baseball  expert,  to  be  universally  popular,  to 
win  fame,  to  be  of  real  help  in  the  world?  These  are 
natural  and  common  aims,  yet  notice  that  each  of 
them,  as  you  follow  it,  goes  on  and  on  unendingly. 
For  when  you  think  of  it,  athletic  power  is  never  com- 
pletely attained;  you  can  always  do  better, — or 
rather,  there  is  always  something  better  to  be  done. 
As  for  popularity,  the  world  is  wide  and  you  will  never 
know  enough  of  its  inhabitants  to  be  sure  of  your 
ability  to  get  on  wdth  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men. 
So  it  is  with  the  desire  for  fame,  or  with  the  eager 
purpose  to  help  human  beings.  There  are  ahvays 
more  laurels  to  win,  more  folks  to  comfort.  Your 
aim  reaches  out  to  infinity. 

I  was  speaking  lately  with  a  philosophical  friend  of 
mine  about  the  mission  of  Christ.  ''The  purpose  of 
Jesus  was  to  hunt  for  souls  and  save  them,"  he  said. 
"Till  the  last  soul  is  saved  Jesus  would  remain  un- 
satisfied. Therefore  his  mission  is  infinite  and  re- 
quires eternity  for  its  fulfillment."  But  if  the  aim  of 
Jesus  is  infinite,  our  aims,  too,  may  become  like  his. 
The  creative  love  of  God  will  see  and  protect  the  least 
germ  of  good  in  us,  as  the  gardener  sees  the  minutest 
growth  of  new  life  in  a  plant  which  to  dull  eyes  looks 
dead.  In  that  hope  and  with  valiant  wills  we  can  set 
forth  to  do  our  part  in  the  world.  In  life  and  death 
God  will  keep  us  with  Him. 


